School of Medicine, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China; Department of Neurology, The Second Medical Center, Sleep Medicine Research Center, National Clinical Research Centre for Geriatric Diseases, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, 100853, China.
Department of Neurology, The Second Medical Center, Sleep Medicine Research Center, National Clinical Research Centre for Geriatric Diseases, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, 100853, China.
Sleep Med. 2021 Aug;84:187-194. doi: 10.1016/j.sleep.2021.05.037. Epub 2021 Jun 5.
Sleep deprivation can robustly affect vigilant attention. The insula is a key hub of the salience network that mediates shifting attention between endogenous and exogenous states. However, little is known regarding the involvement of insular functional connectivity in impaired vigilant attention after total sleep deprivation (TSD). The purpose of this study is to explore the alterations in insular functional connectivity and its association with vigilant attention performance following TSD.
Twenty-six adult men were enrolled in the study. Participants underwent two counterbalanced resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) scans, once in rested wakefulness (RW) and once after 36 h of TSD. Seed-based functional connectivity analysis was performed using rs-fMRI data for the left and right insula. The vigilant attention was measured using a psychomotor vigilance test (PVT). Furthermore, Pearson correlation analysis was conducted to investigate the relationship between altered insular functional connectivity and PVT performance.
Compared to RW, enhanced functional connectivity was observed between the insula and prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex, while reduced functional connectivity was observed between the insula and temporal, parietal, and occipital regions following TSD. Moreover, altered insular functional connectivity with the prefrontal cortex, ie superior frontal gyrus and middle frontal gyrus, and inferior temporal gyrus was correlated with PVT performance after TSD.
Our results suggest that insular coupling with the prefrontal cortex and inferior temporal gyrus may act as neural indicators for vigilant attention impairment, which further reveals the critical role of the salience network in cognitive decline following TSD.
睡眠剥夺会显著影响警觉性注意力。脑岛是突显网络的关键枢纽，该网络介导内源性和外源性状态之间注意力的转移。然而，对于总睡眠剥夺（TSD）后脑岛功能连接在警觉性注意力受损中的作用知之甚少。本研究旨在探讨 TSD 后脑岛功能连接的变化及其与警觉性注意力表现的关系。
纳入 26 名成年男性进行研究。参与者接受了两次平衡的静息态功能磁共振成像（rs-fMRI）扫描，一次在清醒静息状态（RW），一次在 TSD 后 36 小时。使用 rs-fMRI 数据对左、右脑岛进行基于种子的功能连接分析。警觉性注意力通过精神运动警觉测试（PVT）进行测量。此外，还进行了 Pearson 相关分析，以研究脑岛功能连接改变与 PVT 表现之间的关系。
与 RW 相比，TSD 后观察到脑岛与前额叶皮质和前扣带皮质之间的功能连接增强，而与颞叶、顶叶和枕叶之间的功能连接减弱。此外，脑岛与前额叶皮质（即额上回和额中回）和颞下回的功能连接改变与 TSD 后 PVT 表现相关。
我们的研究结果表明，脑岛与前额叶皮质和颞下回的耦合可能是警觉性注意力损伤的神经指标，进一步揭示了突显网络在 TSD 后认知能力下降中的关键作用。
