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Meta-Analysis
. 2022 Jun 15;22(1):399.
doi: 10.1186/s12888-022-03946-8.

The causal relationship between sleep traits and the risk of schizophrenia: a two-sample bidirectional Mendelian randomization study

Zhen Wang #  1 , Miao Chen #  1 , Yin-Ze Wei  1 , Chen-Gui Zhuo  2 , Hong-Fei Xu #  1 , Wei-Dong Li #  3 , Liang Ma #  4
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

The causal relationship between sleep traits and the risk of schizophrenia: a two-sample bidirectional Mendelian randomization study

Zhen Wang et al. BMC Psychiatry. .

Abstract

Background: Observational studies suggest that sleep disturbances are commonly associated with schizophrenia. However, it is uncertain whether this relationship is causal. To investigate the bidirectional causal relation between sleep traits and schizophrenia, we performed a two-sample bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR) study with the fixed effects inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method.

Methods: As genetic variants for sleep traits, we selected variants from each meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies (GWASs) conducted using data from the UK Biobank (UKB).

Results: We found that morning diurnal preference was associated with a lower risk of schizophrenia, while long sleep duration and daytime napping were associated with a higher risk of schizophrenia. Multivariable MR analysis also showed that sleep duration was associated with a higher risk of schizophrenia after adjusting for other sleep traits. Furthermore, genetically predicted schizophrenia was negatively associated with morning diurnal preference and short sleep duration and was positively associated with daytime napping and long sleep duration.

Conclusions: Therefore, sleep traits were identified as a potential treatment target for patients with schizophrenia.

Keywords: Mendelian randomized study; Schizophrenia; Sleep traits.

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Conflict of interest statement

All authors have read and agreed with the submission of the manuscript. This manuscript has not been published or presented elsewhere in part or in entirety. There are no conflicts of interest to declare. This manuscript was not pre-registered.

All authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Mendelian randomization estimates for the association of sleep traits on schizophrenia. CI, confidence interval
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Multivariable MR estimates for morning diurnal preference, sleep duration, daytime napping, daytime sleepiness and insomnia on schizophrenia. CI, confidence interval
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Mendelian randomization estimates for the association of schizophrenia on sleep traits. CI, confidence interval
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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