Regional brain metabolism differs between narcolepsy type 1 and idiopathic hypersomnia

Study Objectives: Daytime sleepiness is a manifestation of multiple sleep and neurologic disorders. Few studies have assessed patterns of regional brain metabolism across different disorders of excessive daytime sleepiness. One such disorder, idiopathic hypersomnia (IH), is particularly understudied. Methods: People with IH, narcolepsy (NT1), and non-sleepy controls underwent [F-18]-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) with electroencephalography (EEG). Participants were instructed to resist sleep and were awoken if sleep occurred. Voxel-wise parametric analysis identified clusters that significantly differed between each pair of groups, with a minimum cluster size of 100 voxels at a cluster detection threshold of p < 0.005. Correlations between glucose metabolism and sleep characteristics were evaluated. Results: Participants (77% women) had IH (n = 16), NT1 (n = 14), or were non-sleepy controls (n = 9), whose average age was 33.8 (10.7) years. Compared to controls, NT1 participants demonstrated hypermetabolism in fusiform gyrus, middle occipital gyrus, superior and middle temporal gyri, insula, cuneus, precuneus, pre- and post-central gyri, and culmen. Compared to controls, IH participants also demonstrated hypermetabolism in precuneus, inferior parietal lobule, superior and middle temporal gyri, and culmen. Additionally, IH participants demonstrated altered metabolism of the posterior cingulate. Most participants fell asleep. Minutes of N1 during uptake was significantly negatively correlated with metabolism of the middle temporal gyrus. Conclusion: NT1 and IH demonstrate somewhat overlapping, but distinct, patterns of regional metabolism.

Automated summary

The study compared patterns of regional brain metabolism in patients with idiopathic hypersomnia (IH), narcolepsy (NT1), and non-sleepy controls. The results showed that NT1 and IH patients have somewhat overlapping but distinct regional metabolism patterns.