Photo Credit: Tommaso79
The following is a summary of “Elucidating the association of obstructive sleep apnea with brain structure and cognitive performance,” published in the May 2024 issue of Psychiatry by Bao et al.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common, ongoing breathing problem during sleep that affects brain structure and cognitive abilities. However, its direct impact on these aspects needs to be clarified.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study to establish whether OSA causes changes in brain structure and affects cognitive function.
They used a two-sample bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR) approach to explore whether OSA influences brain cortical and subcortical structure and structural change across lifetime and cognitive performance. They analyzed genetic data for OSA from the FinnGen consortium and neurocognitive trait data from published meta-analyses. Genetic correlations were examined using linkage disequilibrium score regression.
The results showed that the MR study found that OSA significantly increases hippocampus volume (IVW ß (95% CI) =158.997 (76.768-241.227), P=1.51e-04) without heterogeneity or pleiotropy. OSA also shows nominal causal effects on other brain structures like temporal pole thickness and amygdala structure, impacting cerebellum white matter change over the lifespan. Bidirectional causal links were detected between brain structure, cognitive performance, and OSA risk.
Investigators concluded that genetically predicted OSA was positively correlated with hippocampus volume, which signified bidirectional links between OSA and neurocognitive features.
Source: bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-024-05789-x