Somatomotor Disconnection Links Sleep Duration With Socioeconomic Context, Screen Time, Cognition, and Psychopathology

Abstract

Background

Sleep is critical for healthy brain development and emotional well-being, especially during adolescence, when sleep, behavior, and neurobiology are rapidly evolving. Theoretical reviews and empirical research have historically focused on how sleep influences mental health through its impact on higher-order brain systems. No studies have leveraged data-driven network neuroscience methods to uncover interpretable, brainwide signatures of sleep duration in adolescence, their socioenvironmental origins, and their consequences for cognition and psychopathology.

Methods

We implemented graph theory and component-based predictive modeling to examine how a multimodal index of sleep duration (parent-report, youth-report, Fitbit) is associated with intrinsic brain architecture in 3037 youths (ages 11–12 years) from the ABCD (Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development) Study.

Results

We demonstrated that network integration/segregation exhibited a strong, generalizable multivariate association with sleep duration (r = 0.23, p < .001). The multivariate signature of shorter sleep predominantly involved increasing disconnection of a lower-order system, the somatomotor network, from other systems. Next, we identified a single component of brain architecture as the dominant contributor of this relationship (r = 0.15), which again exhibited this somatomotor disconnection motif. Finally, greater somatomotor disconnection was associated with lower socioeconomic resources, longer screen times, reduced cognitive/academic performance, and elevated externalizing problems (βs > 0.03, ps ≤ .007).

Conclusions

These findings reveal a novel neural signature of shorter sleep in adolescence that is intertwined with environmental risk, cognition, and psychopathology. By robustly elucidating the key involvement of an understudied brain system in sleep, this study can inform theoretical and translational research directions on sleep to promote neurobehavioral development and mental health during the adolescent transition.