Heritability of Sleep EEG Topography in Adolescence: Results from a Longitudinal Twin Study

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Date
2018-05-09Type
- Journal Article
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Cited 17 times in
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Cited 17 times in
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Abstract
The topographic distribution of sleep EEG power is a reflection of brain structure and function. The goal of this study was to examine the degree to which genes contribute to sleep EEG topography during adolescence, a period of brain restructuring and maturation. We recorded high-density sleep EEG in monozygotic (MZ; n = 28) and dizygotic (DZ; n = 22) adolescent twins (mean age = 13.2 ± 1.1 years) at two time points 6 months apart. The topographic distribution of normalized sleep EEG power was examined for the frequency bands delta (1–4.6 Hz) to gamma 2 (34.2–44 Hz) during NREM and REM sleep. We found highest heritability values in the beta band for NREM and REM sleep (0.44 ≤ h2 ≤ 0.57), while environmental factors shared amongst twin siblings accounted for the variance in the delta to sigma bands (0.59 ≤ c2 ≤ 0.83). Given that both genetic and environmental factors are reflected in sleep EEG topography, our results suggest that topography may provide a rich metric by which to understand brain function. Furthermore, the frequency specific parsing of the influence of genetic from environmental factors on topography suggests functionally distinct networks and reveals the mechanisms that shape these networks. Show more
Permanent link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000268664Publication status
publishedExternal links
Journal / series
Scientific ReportsVolume
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
Nature Publishing GroupMore
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Citations
Cited 17 times in
Web of Science
Cited 17 times in
Scopus
ETH Bibliography
yes
Altmetrics