Department of Cardiology, The People's Hospital of Liaoning Province, Shenyang, 110016, People's Republic of China.
Center of Psychological Quality Education, Beijing Union University, Beijing, 100101, People's Republic of China.
Brain Imaging Behav. 2017 Aug;11(4):954-963. doi: 10.1007/s11682-016-9570-1.
Acute sleep restriction heavily influences cognitive function, affecting executive processes such as attention, response inhibition, and memory. Previous neuroimaging studies have suggested a link between hippocampal activity and short-term memory function. However, the specific contribution of the hippocampus to the decline of short-term memory following sleep restriction has yet to be established. In the current study, we utilized resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the association between hippocampal functional connectivity (FC) and the decline of short-term memory following total sleep deprivation (TSD). Twenty healthy adult males aged 20.9 ± 2.3 years (age range, 18-24 years) were enrolled in a within-subject crossover study. Short-term memory and FC were assessed using a Delay-matching short-term memory test and a resting-state fMRI scan before and after TSD. Seed-based correlation analysis was performed using fMRI data for the left and right hippocampus to identify differences in hippocampal FC following TSD. Subjects demonstrated reduced alertness and a decline in short-term memory performance following TSD. Moreover, fMRI analysis identified reduced hippocampal FC with the superior frontal gyrus (SFG), temporal regions, and supplementary motor area. In addition, an increase in FC between the hippocampus and bilateral thalamus was observed, the extent of which correlated with short-term memory performance following TSD. Our findings indicate that the disruption of hippocampal-cortical connectivity is linked to the decline in short-term memory observed after acute sleep restriction. Such results provide further evidence that support the cognitive impairment model of sleep deprivation.
急性睡眠限制严重影响认知功能，影响注意力、反应抑制和记忆等执行过程。先前的神经影像学研究表明海马体活动与短期记忆功能之间存在关联。然而，睡眠限制后短期记忆下降与海马体的具体关系尚未确定。在本研究中，我们利用静息态功能磁共振成像（fMRI）来研究海马体功能连接（FC）与完全睡眠剥夺（TSD）后短期记忆下降之间的关系。20 名年龄为 20.9±2.3 岁（年龄范围为 18-24 岁）的健康成年男性被纳入了一项自身交叉研究。使用延迟匹配短期记忆测试和 TSD 前后的静息态 fMRI 扫描来评估短期记忆和 FC。使用左、右海马体的 fMRI 数据进行基于种子的相关分析，以确定 TSD 后海马体 FC 的差异。TSD 后，被试的警觉性降低，短期记忆表现下降。此外，fMRI 分析还发现，与额上回（SFG）、颞叶区域和辅助运动区的海马体 FC 减少。此外，还观察到海马体与双侧丘脑之间的 FC 增加，其程度与 TSD 后短期记忆表现相关。我们的研究结果表明，海马体-皮质连接的中断与急性睡眠限制后观察到的短期记忆下降有关。这些结果进一步证明了睡眠剥夺认知障碍模型的合理性。
