PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Wolfram Regen AU - Simon D. Kyle AU - Christoph Nissen AU - Bernd Feige AU - Chiara Baglioni AU - Jürgen Hennig AU - Dieter Riemann AU - Kai Spiegelhalder TI - Objective sleep disturbances are associated with greater waking resting-state connectivity between the retrosplenial cortex/hippocampus and various nodes of the default mode network AID - 10.1503/jpn.140290 DP - 2016 Sep 01 TA - Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience PG - 295--303 VI - 41 IP - 5 4099 - http://jpn.ca/content/41/5/295.short 4100 - http://jpn.ca/content/41/5/295.full SO - J Psychiatry Neurosci2016 Sep 01; 41 AB - Background: Psychological models highlight the bidirectional role of self-referential processing, introspection, worry and rumination in the development and maintenance of insomnia; however, little is known about the underlying neural substrates. Default mode network (DMN) functional connectivity has been previously linked to these cognitive processes.Methods: We used fMRI to investigate waking DMN functional connectivity in a well-characterized sample of patients with primary insomnia (PI) and good sleeper controls.Results: We included 20 patients with PI (8 men and 12 women, mean age 42.7 ± 13.4 yr) and 20 controls (8 men and 12 women, mean age 44.1 ± 10.6 yr) in our study. While no between-group differences in waking DMN connectivity were observed, exploratory analyses across all participants suggested that greater waking connectivity between the retrosplenial cortex/hippocampus and various nodes of the DMN was associated with lower sleep efficiency, lower amounts of rapid eye movement sleep and greater sleep-onset latency.Limitations: Owing to the cross-sectional nature of the study, conclusions about causality cannot be drawn.Conclusion: As sleep disturbances represent a transdiagnostic symptom that is characteristic of nearly all psychiatric disorders, our results may hold particular relevance to previous findings of increased DMN connectivity levels in patients with psychiatric disorders.