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Regional homogeneity changes in patients with primary insomnia

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Abstract

Purpose

The study aimed to explore the regional spontaneous activity changes in primary insomnia (PI) patients.

Materials and methods

Based on the resting-state fMRI datasets acquired from 59 PI patients and 47 healthy controls, a two-sample t-test was performed on individual normalized regional homogeneity (ReHo) maps. Relationships between abnormal ReHo values and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the self-rating anxiety scale (SAS) and the self-rating depression scale (SDS) were investigated with Pearson correlation analysis.

Results

In PI patients, we found increased ReHo in the left insula, right anterior cingulate gyrus, bilateral precentral gyrus and left cuneus, as well as decreased ReHo in the right middle cingulate cortex and left fusiform (p < 0.05, AlphaSim-corrected). We also found a significant positive correlation between increased ReHo in the left insula and SAS scores, decreased ReHo in the right middle cingulated cortex and SDS, SAS scores as well as a negative correlation between increased ReHo in the right precentral gyrus and SDS scores (p < 0.05).

Conclusions

Our study found abnormal spontaneous activities in multiple brain regions, especially in emotion-related areas in PI patients. Alterative activities in these regions might contribute to an understanding the intrinsic functional architecture of insomnia and its clinical features.

Key Points

• Regional spontaneous activity changes were detected in PI patients.

• Decreased or increased ReHo of some regions was identified in PI patients.

• Significant correlations between mean ReHo and SDS scores were found.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express their appreciation to Queenie Chan and all the reviewers who improved the article greatly.

The scientific guarantor of this publication is Guihua Jiang. The authors of this manuscript declare no relationships with any companies whose products or services may be related to the subject matter of the article.

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.:81471639) and The Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province, China (Grant No.: 2011B031800044, 2012B031800170, 2012A030400019).

Jinwu Liu kindly provided statistical advice for this manuscript. Institutional review board approval was obtained. Written informed consent was obtained from all subjects (patients) in this study.

Some study subjects or cohorts have been previously reported in the fMRI studies of primary insomnia [17]. Methodology: prospective, case-control study, performed at one institution.

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Author notes

    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Guangdong No. 2 Provincial People’s Hospital of Southern Medical University, The Third Clinical Medical College of Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China

      Tianyue Wang

    2. Guangdong No. 2 Provincial People’s Hospital of Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510317, People’s Republic of China

      Shumei Li, Guihua Jiang, Chulan Lin, Meng Li, Xiaofen Ma, Wenfeng Zhan, Jin Fang, Liming Li, Cheng Li & Junzhang Tian

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    1. Tianyue Wang
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    Correspondence to Guihua Jiang.

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    Tianyue Wang and Shumei Li contributed equally to this work.

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    Cite this article

    Wang, T., Li, S., Jiang, G. et al. Regional homogeneity changes in patients with primary insomnia. Eur Radiol 26, 1292–1300 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-015-3960-4

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