It has been reported that one night of acute sleep deprivation (SD) could induce brain structural changes at the synaptic and neuronal levels in animal studies, and could lead to white matter microstructure and cortical thickness change in human neuroimaging studies. In this study, we focused on changes of brain gray matter density (GMD) after one night of acute SD, which has not been explored previously. Twenty-three normal young participants completed the experiment. Each participant underwent twice T1-weighted structural image scanning with one at 08:00 after normal sleep [resting wakeful (RW)] and the other at 08:00 after 24 h of SD. Using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis by FSL-VBM software, we compared GMD between RW and SD. In addition, the gray matter volume (GMV) and cortical thickness (CT) were also calculated based on volumetric and surface measures with FreeSurfer software. The psychomotor vigilance test (PVT) and the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS) were performed and evaluated for correlation analysis with GMD, GMV, and CT of the significant regions. Our results showed that the GMD in the right frontal pole (FP), right superior frontal gyrus (SFG), and right middle frontal gyrus significantly increased and GMV and CT in the right temporal pole (TP) significantly decreased after 24 h of acute SD. SD-induced changes in GMD in the right middle frontal gyrus were positively correlated with the changes of KSS scores (Spearman’s correlation r = 0.625, p = 0.0014, Bonferroni correction with p < 0.05/25). Taken together, our findings suggested that one night of acute SD could induce substantial brain structure changes and the alterations in GMD in the right middle frontal gyrus (MFG) might be implicated in sleepiness after SD.

中文翻译：

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健康成人睡眠剥夺 24 小时后脑灰质密度的变化

据报道，在动物研究中，一晚的急性睡眠剥夺 (SD) 会引起突触和神经元水平的大脑结构变化，并可能导致人类神经影像学研究中的白质微观结构和皮质厚度变化。在这项研究中，我们专注于急性 SD 一晚后脑灰质密度 (GMD) 的变化，这在以前没有被探索过。二十三名正常的年轻参与者完成了实验。每个参与者都接受了两次 T1 加权结构图像扫描，一次在正常睡眠后的 08:00 [休息清醒 (RW)]，另一次在 SD 24 小时后的 08:00。通过 FSL-VBM 软件使用基于体素的形态测量 (VBM) 分析，我们比较了 RW 和 SD 之间的 GMD。此外，灰质体积 (GMV) 和皮质厚度 (CT) 也基于体积和表面测量使用 FreeSurfer 软件计算。进行了精神运动警觉性测试（PVT）和卡罗林斯卡嗜睡量表（KSS），并评估了与重要区域的 GMD、GMV 和 CT 的相关性分析。我们的结果表明，急性 SD 24 小时后，右侧额极 (FP)、右侧额上回 (SFG) 和右侧额中回的 GMD 显着增加，右侧颞极 (TP) 的 GMV 和 CT 显着降低. SD 引起的右侧额中回 GMD 的变化与 KSS 评分的变化呈正相关（Spearman 相关 r = 0.625，p = 0.0014，Bonferroni 校正，p < 0.05/25）。综合起来，