The effect of sleep quality on dynamic network connectivity during rest and n-back task performance

Poster Session B - Sunday, April 14, 2024, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Sheraton Hall ABC

Sakshi Dhawan¹ (sdhawan31@gatech.edu), Dolly Seeburger¹, Nan Xu², Clay Baer*¹, Autumn Hart*¹, Maya Karkare*¹, Cassandra Rich*¹, Sarah Sorme*¹, Audrey Duarte³, Shella Keilholz², Eric H. Schumacher¹; ¹Georgia Institute of Technology, ²Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology, ³University of Texas at Austin

Quasi-periodic patterns (QPPs) play an important role in the functional connectivity between Default Mode (DMN) and Task Positive Networks (TPN). Research indicates that fluctuations in attentional focus and arousal impact QPPs during both rest and task (Abbas et al., 2019). Arousal levels have also been shown to be affected by the individual’s sleep duration with daytime sleepiness reducing DMN connectivity in young adults (Ward et al., 2013), thereby producing altered connectivity between the DMN and the TPN. Additionally, arousal may play a role in the differences in QPP connectivity in patients with ADHD (Abbas et al., 2019). Here we examined how sleep quality affects healthy college-age students during both rest and working memory tasks. Participants’ sleep quality and duration were measured for three days prior to scanning. During scanning, they performed rest, 0-back, and 2-back blocks. Participants were then categorized into good or poor sleepers based on a tertiary split of sleep quality scores. Good sleepers were observed to be faster and more accurate than poor sleepers in both n-back tasks. During rest, differences in QPPs within the frontoparietal control network (FPCN) of the TPN were observed between good and poor sleepers. Poor sleepers had lower FPCN amplitude and a lower positive correlation with DMN. In the 0-back task, in addition to lower amplitude, FPCN was also positively correlated with DMN in poor sleepers. These data suggest that the relationship between QPPs and brain networks changes with arousal and relates to task performance. *authors contributed equally.

Topic Area: EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory