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Thalamic Grey Matter Volume Changes After Sleep Deprivation in Rats

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Abstract

The modern life style demands a prolonged wakefulness despite the mounting evidences that deficit in adequate amount and quality of sleep impairs the wellbeing including attention, executive functions, working memory and other general functioning of the body. The thalamus plays a key role in mediating sleep–wakefulness through its intrinsic as well as extrinsic network connection with brainstem and cortex through ascending reticular activating system. In the present study, we examined the effects of 24, 48 and 72 h sleep deprivation in three separate groups of male Wistar rats on the thalamic grey matter volume. The three groups of rats (n = 18(6 × 3)) were sleep-deprived for three different durations, i.e. 24, 48 and 72 h using modified multiple platform method. Brain imaging was done using 7 T small animal MR scanner before and after sleep deprivation. From the acquired images, the total volume of the thalamus was calculated. The volume of the hippocampus was taken as reference. The grey matter volume of the thalamus showed a decreasing trend after sleep deprivation in all three groups of rats. Though the decrease in the thalamic volume was not statistically significant, the present study is the first animal MRI experiment to report the decrease in the thalamic grey matter volume after sleep deprivation which supports the similar findings in humans. The synaptic homeostatic hypothesis that cortical excitatory synapses should increase in size after wake and decrease after sleep is not evident in thalamus.

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Availability of Data and Material

The datasets generated during analysis used in the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The study was supported by All India Institute of Medical Sciences and Indian Council of Medical research, New Delhi, India.

Funding

The study was supported by All India Institute of Medical Sciences and Indian Council of Medical research, New Delhi, India (Grant no. 45/1/2018-PHY/BMS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India

    Sriji Somanath, Binney Sharma & Hruda Nanda Mallick

  2. Department of Molecular Imaging and Theranostics, National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology, Chiba, Japan

    Akira Sumiyoshi

  3. Department of NMR, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India

    S. Senthil Kumaran

  4. Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, SGT University, Budhera, Gurugram, Haryana, India

    Hruda Nanda Mallick

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  1. Sriji Somanath
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  2. Akira Sumiyoshi
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  3. S. Senthil Kumaran
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Contributions

HNM and SSN contributed to design, conceptual framework, experimental work, acquisition of the data and drafting the article of the study. SK contributed to the data acquisition. BS contributed to experimental work. AS contributed to the data analysis.

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Correspondence to Hruda Nanda Mallick.

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On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

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The study was approved by the Institutional Animal Ethics Committee of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.

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Somanath, S., Sumiyoshi, A., Kumaran, S.S. et al. Thalamic Grey Matter Volume Changes After Sleep Deprivation in Rats. Sleep Vigilance 5, 227–234 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41782-021-00148-2

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