Aberrant Gray Matter Structure Associated with Sleep Disturbance in the Drug Naïve Subjects with Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

Background and ObjectiveaaAlthough the sleep disturbances are very common and serious behavioral symptoms in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the neuronal substrate of the gray matter structures associated with sleep disturbances in AD were not clear. The aim of this study is to investigate distinctive correlation patterns between the gray matter volume and sleep disturbances in AD. MethodsaaThirty drug-naive patients with AD and 30 group-matched healthy control subjects underwent 3T magnetic resonance imag ing scanning, and the whole brain gray matter volumes were measured using voxel based morphometry. We explored the correlation pattern between the gray matter volumes and the sleep disturbances in AD using the sleep disturbance subscale of Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI). ResultsaaSignificant negative correlations were observed between left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and hypothalamus vol umes and sleep disturbance subscale of NPI (false discovery rate corrected for multiple comparisons p < 0.05). ConclusionsaaThis study was the first to explore the relationships between whole brain gray matter volumes and sleep disturbances of drug-naive patients with AD. These structural changes in DLPFC and hypothalamus might be the core of the underlying neurobiological mechanisms of sleep disturbances in AD.