The subcortical basis of subjective sleep quality.

Study Objectives: To assess the association between self-reported sleep quality and cortical and subcortical local morphometry.

Methods: Sleep and neuroanatomical data from the full release of the young adult Human Connectome Project dataset were analyzed. Sleep quality was operationalized with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Local cortical and subcortical morphometry was measured with subject-specific segmentations resulting in voxelwise thickness measurements for cortex and relative (i.e., cross-sectional) local atrophy measurements for subcortical regions.

Results: Relative atrophy across several subcortical regions, including bilateral pallidum, striatum, and thalamus, was negatively associated with both global PSQI score and sub-components of the index related to sleep duration, efficiency, and quality. Conversely, we found no association between cortical morphometric measurements and self-reported sleep quality.

Conclusions: This work shows that subcortical regions such as the bilateral pallidum, thalamus, and striatum, might be interventional targets to ameliorate self-reported sleep quality.