Local efficiency analysis of the emotion regulation network in younger and older adults experiencing sleep deprivation: A task-based fMRI study

Abstract

Previous neuroimaging studies have examined how sleep deprivation affects emotional processing. However, graph theory has not yet been utilized to analyze functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data in relation to the brain regions and networks involved in emotions and feelings among sleep-deprived individuals. This study involved a dataset comprising 46 younger participants (ages 20–30) and 39 older participants (ages 65–75) who underwent an emotional task-based fMRI investigation. We identified graph edges within the brain's emotional networks and utilized recurrence plots to evaluate local efficiency (LE). In both age groups experiencing sleep deprivation, most brain regions associated with emotion regulation exhibited a decrease in LE across all three types of emotional tasks, with only a few regions showing an increase in LE. Notably, younger adults demonstrated greater LE across most regions following sleep deprivation compared to older adults, particularly in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) components of the emotion regulation network. Conversely, older adults displayed greater LE in certain areas post-sleep deprivation than younger adults, especially in lower-order cortical and some subcortical structures within the emotion regulation network. Our findings indicate that sleep deprivation produces distinct patterns of LE in the emotion regulation network for younger and older adults. This could deepen our understanding of novel mechanisms and potentially inform therapeutic strategies for sleep-related emotional disorders in the future.