0082 Hippocampal Gray Matter Volume in Healthy Adult Population is Associated with Habitual Sleep Duration

Abstract

Abstract Introduction The hippocampus is well known for its role in sleep and memory consolidation in adolescents, and has been shown to demonstrate neural plasticity and neuronal regeneration. However, the relationship between sleep and hippocampal gray matter volume in healthy adults remains to be fully characterized. We hypothesized that total sleep time (TST), as measured by actigraphy, would correlate positively with gray matter volume (GMV) in the hippocampus, a key memory region of the brain. Methods Forty-five healthy normal sleeping adults between 20–45 years of age wore an actigraph for seven days to quantify habitual sleep duration and underwent magnetic resonance imaging during the actigraphy period. Voxel based morphometry in SPM12 was used to estimate GMV at the whole brain level. A region-of-interest mask was used to constrain data analysis to the left and right hippocampi. Results Habitual sleep duration per night correlated positively with gray matter volume within part of the left hippocampus (x=-36,y=-20,z=-18; k=32, pFWE-corr=0.093), controlling for age, sex, total intracranial volume, intelligence scores and mood. No correlation was found between TST and hippocampal GMV in the right hippocampus. Conclusion Longer sleep time was associated with greater gray matter volume in the left hippocampus. This finding is consistent with what has been observed in healthy children and extend these findings to healthy normal sleeping adults. While TST and GMV are correlated, the causal association cannot be established here. Further research may explore the effects of sleep extension on GMV and how these volume differences associate with various aspects of cognition, particularly memory. It should be noted that this study only included healthy adults with sleep durations between 6–9 hours per night. Future studies would benefit from including adults with a greater variance in their sleep patterns to better understand the relationship between sleep and hippocampal volume, and its potential effects on memory performance. Support Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Young Faculty Award: DARPA-12-12-11-YFA11-FP-029