Enhanced Anti-correlation Between the Dorsal Attention and Default-mode Networks: A Resting-state fMRI Study of Acute Insomnia

With a greatly changed environment, sleep problem becomes a common phenomenon among college freshmen. However, this type of acute insomnia usually recovers after adapting to the circumstances, which can be defined as adaptive sleep problem (ASP). Few studies deal with this type of sleep problems. In this study, 991 first-year college freshmen were recruited on different days of the first semester to investigate their sleep status. We found that the sleep problem of college freshmen at the beginning of the semester was the most severe, compared with the other two-thirds of semester. Next, behavioral and resting-state functional magnetic imaging (rs-fMRI) data from 30 freshmen with ASP and 28 matched healthy controls (HC) were used to explore the neural basis of acute insomnia. Results showed that ASP group performed worse on many behavioral indices, such as fatigue, depression, and trait anxiety. Interestingly, students with ASP also showed significantly more negative functional connectivity between the anterior default mode network (aDMN) and the dorsal attentional network (DAN). Furthermore, a significant negative correlation was observed between Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) score and aDMN-DAN functional connectivity in the HC group, which was not observed in the case of ASP. In conclusion, the study explored the neural biomarker of adaptive sleep problem (ASP) in freshmen, and found its potentiating antagonism within the DMN-DAN. This enhanced anticorrelation may corroborate that students with ASP are in a hyperarousal state. Our current study may deepen our understanding of sleep disorders, and the enhanced anticorrelation may corroborate that ASP in due to a hyperarousal state.