The relationship between EEG functional connectivity during sleep and cognitive function in Parkinson’s disease

Poster Session F - Tuesday, April 16, 2024, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Sheraton Hall ABC

Soraya Lahlou¹ (soraya.lahlou@mail.mcgill.ca), Jean-Francois Gagnon^2,3, Julie Carrier^2,4, Madeleine Sharp¹; ¹Montreal Neurological Institute, ²Center for Advanced Research in Sleep Medicine, ³Université du Québec à Montréal, ⁴University of Montreal

Changes to sleep are common in Parkinson’s disease (PD) and have been associated with worse cognitive performance. Much of this work has focused on either global measures of sleep architecture or on specific oscillations (e.g., sleep spindles). More recently, EEG-derived functional connectivity has also emerged as a possible predictor of cognitive function but little is known about the degree to which patterns of EEG connectivity during sleep can be associated to cognitive function in PD. PD patients (n=47) and healthy older adults (n=23) underwent a neuropsychological evaluation of five cognitive domains (attention, executive function, learning and memory, visuospatial abilities and language) and overnight polysomnography. EEG functional connectivity was measured using imaginary coherence in NREM2 and NREM3 across the delta, theta, alpha, low sigma and high sigma frequency bands. We used partial least squares correlational analysis to investigate the patterns of associations between sleep EEG functional connectivity and cognitive performance. In NREM2 we identified a significant latent variable that explained 38% of the covariance between EEG connectivity and cognition across PD patients and controls. This latent variable was associated with worse performance in all cognitive domains and with higher connectivity in delta and theta bands. In NREM3 the significant latent variable explained 57% of the covariance and was associated with worse memory and with increased connectivity across all frequency bands. Both NREM2 and NREM3 latent variables were similarly expressed across both PD patients and controls. These preliminary results suggest that NREM2 and NREM3 differentially contribute to cognitive performance in PD.

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