Scientists have discovered five different types of sleep in humans, each with its own distinct brain activity pattern and impacts on health and behaviour, an advance that could lead to new depression and anxiety therapies.
The research, published in the journal PLOS Biology, found that each of these patterns of sleep was connected with different factors, including lifestyle, mental and physical health, and cognitive performance.
“This highlights the importance of considering the full picture of an individual’s sleep to help clinicians make more accurate assessments and guide treatment,” said study co-author Aurore Perrault from Concordia University.
“The dominance of mental health markers in most of the profiles is not surprising as sleep is one of the five key domains of human functioning likely to affect mental health,” said Valeria Kebets, another author of the study.
Until now, most sleep studies have focused on a single aspect like duration, examining how it relates to a single outcome, like poor mental health.
However, predicting sleep outcomes based on many different factors has been elusive.
In the new study, scientists assessed data from over 750 people from the Human Connectome Project dataset, conducting a data-driven analysis of multiple sleep-related factors.
Scientists could uncover five sleep profiles overall.
The first was generally poor sleep, which was related to worse psychological health, including depression, anxiety, and stress.
The second was a sleep type characterised by resilience, one in which poor sleep was not associated with psychological issues like attentional difficulties.
The remaining three profiles were more specific, with one characterised almost entirely by sleep duration as short durations in these cases were associated with poorer cognition.
Each of these sleep types was found to be linked to a unique brain activity pattern.
The research was possible as the project dataset contained multiple details about each person’s sleep characteristics, including brain imaging, psychological, and social data.
Using this approach, researchers could find relationships among all these factors, which had not been done before.
Citing an example, researchers said people who fell into the first profile showed high nerve connectivity between subcortical brain regions involved in memory, emotion, and pleasure, as well as brain areas involved in body movement and attention.
Scientists hope that identifying the profiles of each patient could allow clinicians to provide better individualised treatments and support.
“Sleep is made up of many dimensions, not just how long we sleep. By analysing more than 700 young adults, we discovered five distinct ‘sleep profiles’ based on reports of sleep duration, presence of disruptions, use of sleep medications,” researchers wrote.
“Each profile carried its own distinctive link in health, lifestyle, and cognition, and even showed unique neuroimaging traits using functional MRI,” they wrote in the study.
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