Altered Density of Resting-State Long- and Short-Range Functional Connectivity in Patients with Moderate-to-Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Purpose: This study is to evaluate the altered number of functional connection (s) in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) by functional connectivity density (FCD), to investigate its relationship with cognitive function, and to explore whether these features could be used to distinguish OSA from healthy controls (HCs). Methods: Seventy-six OSA patients and 72 HCs were included in the analysis. All participants underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Subsequently, intergroup differences between long-and short-range FCD groups were obtained in the Matlab platform by using the degree centrality option with a 75 mm cutoff. The partial correlation analysis were used to assess the relationship between the altered FCD value and clinical assessments in OSA patients. The FCD values of the different brain regions were used as classification features to distinguish the two groups by support vector machine (SVM). Results: Compared to HCs, OSA patients had decreased long-range FCD in the right superior frontal gyrus (SFG), right precuneus, and left middle frontal gyrus (MFG). Simultaneously, increased long-range FCD in the right cingulate gyrus (CG). Meanwhile, the short-range FCD were decreased in the right postcentral gyrus (PoCG), right SFG, left MFG, and right CG. The short-range FCD values of the right PoCG were correlated with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment scores in OSA patients. SVM analysis showed that FCD in differential brain regions could differentiate OSA patients from HCs. Conclusion: Long- and short-range FCD values in different brain regions of OSA patients may be related to cognitive decline, and also be effective in distinguishing OSA patients from HCs. These findings provide new perspectives on neurocognition in OSA patients.