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Increased functional connectivity within the salience network in patients with insomnia

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Abstract

Background

Insomnia is a common sleep disorder with significant negative impacts on emotional states; however, the underlying mechanism of insomnia with comorbid emotional dysregulation remains largely unknown. The salience network (SN) plays an important role in both sleep and emotional regulation. The study aimed to explore the specific alterations in functional connectivity (FC) within the SN in insomnia patients.

Methods

A total of 30 eligible patients with insomnia disorder (ID group) and 30 healthy controls (HC group) underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning and psychometric assessments. Differences in FC within the SN were examined using seed-based region-to-region connectivity analysis.

Results

Compared with healthy controls, patients with insomnia showed increased FC within the SN, mainly between the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and right superior frontal gyrus (SFG), the right SFG and right supramarginal gyrus (SMG), and between the right insular (INS) and left SMG (P<0.05). Additionally, significant correlations were observed between increased FC and the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAMA) scores (P<0.05, after Bonferroni correction).

Conclusions

These results suggest that increased FC within the SN may be related to poor sleep quality and negative emotions, highlighting the importance of the SN in the pathophysiological mechanisms of insomnia with comorbid emotional dysregulation.

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Data availability

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to all the adults who participated in this study.

Funding

This study was funded by the Natural Science Foundation of Beijing Municipality (No.7212170) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.81774391).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing Key Laboratory of Acupuncture Neuromodulation, Department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100010, China

    Xuejiao Yin, Tongfei Jiang, Guiling Wang & Jing Guo

  2. Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, 100105, China

    Zhangxiao Song & Liying Zhu

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  1. Xuejiao Yin
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  2. Tongfei Jiang
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  3. Zhangxiao Song
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  4. Liying Zhu
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by TJ and ZS. The first draft of the manuscript was written by XY, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jing Guo.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of the Beijing Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, affiliated with Capital Medical University (Approval No: 2018BL-002-02), and were in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration.

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Yin, X., Jiang, T., Song, Z. et al. Increased functional connectivity within the salience network in patients with insomnia. Sleep Breath (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11325-024-03002-7

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