The Effects of CPAP Treatment on Resting-State Network Centrality in Obstructive Sleep Apnea Patients

Panmei Li; Yongqiang Shu; Xiang Liu; Linghong Kong; Kunyao Li; Wei Xie; Yaping Zeng; Haijun Li; Dechang Peng

doi:10.3389/fneur.2022.801121

The Effects of CPAP Treatment on Resting-State Network Centrality in Obstructive Sleep Apnea Patients

Front Neurol. 2022 Mar 28:13:801121. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2022.801121. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Panmei Li¹, Yongqiang Shu¹, Xiang Liu¹, Linghong Kong¹, Kunyao Li¹, Wei Xie¹, Yaping Zeng¹, Haijun Li^{1

2}, Dechang Peng^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Medical Imaging Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China.
² Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China.

Abstract

Background and objectives: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is the most common sleep disorder and previous studies have shown that OSA patients suffer from brain network impairments associated with cognitive deficits, and continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treatment can improve clinical symptoms. However, the relationship between CPAP treatment and brain network changes remains unclear. This study explored the characteristics of brain network changes in OSA patients before (pre-CPAP) and after one month of CPAP treatment (post-CPAP).

Methods: We collected data, including sleep monitoring, clinical assessment, and magnetic resonance imaging scans, from 21 OSA patients and 21 age-matched healthy controls (HCs). Voxel-level degree centrality (DC) was used to assess whole-brain network connectivity characteristics, a two-sample t-test was used to compare network differences between pre-CPAP OSA patients and HCs, and a paired sample t-test was used to compare the characteristics of brain network changes in OSA patients before and after treatment. The correlations between the DC value and each of the clinical variables were analyzed in the OSA patients.

Results: Compared with HCs, pre-CPAP OSA patients showed increased DC values in the bilateral cerebellar posterior lobes (CPLs) and decreased DC values in the right superior temporal gyrus, left superior frontal gyrus and right middle frontal gyrus. Compared with pre-CPAP OSA patients, post-CPAP OSA patients showed reduced DC values in the bilateral CPL and increased DC values in several brain regions in the frontal, temporal, and insular lobes after CPAP treatment. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment MoCA (MoCA) scores were positively correlated with the DC value of the bilateral cerebellum posterior lobe, right middle temporal gyrus, left superior temporal gyrus, left paracentral lobule and left paracentral lobule. Also, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) scores were negatively correlated with the DC value of the right middle temporal gyrus in post-CPAP OSA patients.

Conclusion: CPAP treatment can effectively reverse the compensatory response of the bilateral CPL and functional network damage brought about by OSA, which may provide potential neuroimaging biomarkers for CPAP treatment evaluation.

Keywords: cognitive impairment; continuous positive airway pressure; degree centrality; obstructive sleep apnea; resting-state fMRI.