In humans, aging is often associated with changes in sleeping patterns, cognitive abilities and functional network connectivity (i.e., the strength with which activity in different brain regions correlates over time). While many neuroscientists investigated these changes over the past decades, the relationship between them is still poorly understood.
Researchers at Southwest University in China have recently carried out a study exploring the possible effects of sleep on the relationship between functional network connectivity (FNC) and cognitive function in the elderly. Their paper, published in Elsevier's Neuroscience journal, shows that, in older adults, sleep quality could modulate the association between FNC and cognitive function. "Previous studies have showed that resting-state brain functional connectivity can predict the cognitive function of older adults," Jing Yu, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Medical Xpress. "We were interested in whether this prediction could be moderated by older adults' sleep―a correlate disrupted with aging, while contributing to the change of cognitive function." Yu and her colleagues recruited 107 healthy older adults and asked them to complete a questionnaire assessing their sleep quality. This questionnaire was based on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), which examines seven aspects of sleep, including: sleep quality, sleep latency, sleep duration, habitual sleep efficiency, sleep disturbances, use of sleeping medication and daytime dysfunction. Read more...
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