Interaction of Sleep and Cortical Structural Maintenance From an Individual Person Microlongitudinal Perspective and Implications for Precision Medicine Research

Sleep and maintenance of brain structure are essential for the continuity of a person’s cognitive/mental health. Interestingly, whether normal structural maintenance of the brain and sleep continuously interact in some way over day–week–month times has never been assessed at an individual-person level. This study used unconventional microlongitudinal sampling, structural magnetic resonance imaging, and n-of-1 analyses to assess normal interactions between fluctuations in the structural maintenance of cerebral cortical thickness and sleep duration for day, week, and multi-week intervals over a 6-month period in a healthy adult man. Correlation and time series analyses provided indications of “if–then,” i.e., “if” this preceded “then” this followed, sleep-to-thickness maintenance and thickness maintenance-to-sleep bidirectional inverse interactions. Inverse interaction patterns were characterized by concepts of graded influences across nights, bilaterally positive relationships, continuity across successive weeks, and longer delayed/prolonged effects in the thickness maintenance-to-sleep than sleep-to-thickness maintenance direction. These interactions are proposed to involve normal circadian/allostatic/homeostatic mechanisms that continuously influence, and are influenced by, cortical substrate remodeling/turnover and sleep/wake cycle. Understanding interactions of individual person “-omics” is becoming a central interest in precision medicine research. The present n-of-1 findings contribute to this interest and have implications for precision medicine research use of a person’s cortical structural and sleep “-omics” to optimize the continuous maintenance of that individual’s cortical structure, sleep, and cognitive/mental health.