Identifying Diurnal Variability of Brain Connectivity Patterns Using Graph Theory

Abstract

Significant differences exist in human brain functions affected by time of day and by people's diurnal preferences (chronotypes) that are rarely considered in brain studies. In the current study, using network neuroscience and resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) data, we examined the effect of both time of day and the individual's chronotype on whole-brain network organization. In this regard, 62 participants (39 women; mean age: 23.97 ± 3.26 years; half morning- versus half evening-type) were scanned about 1 and 10 h after wake-up time for morning and evening sessions, respectively. We found evidence for a time-of-day effect on connectivity profiles but not for the effect of chronotype. Compared with the morning session, we found relatively higher small-worldness (an index that represents more efficient network organization) in the evening session, which suggests the dominance of sleep inertia over the circadian and homeostatic processes in the first hours after waking. Furthermore, local graph measures were changed, predominantly across the left hemisphere, in areas such as the precentral gyrus, putamen, inferior frontal gyrus (orbital part), inferior temporal gyrus, as well as the bilateral cerebellum. These findings show the variability of the functional neural network architecture during the day and improve our understanding of the role of time of day in resting-state functional networks.

Keywords: brain connectivity; chronotypes; circadian rhythm; graph theory; resting-state fMRI.

Figure 1

Correlation matrices (A,B) (transformed Fisher’s r-to-z) and 10% binarized matrices (C,D) for morning and evening sessions, respectively (averaged across all participants in each session). See Appendix A Table A1 for the description of the areas.

Figure 2

Results of paired t-test on the small-worldness at the threshold values of 0.05 to 0.275. Asterisks (*) in the figures show a significant difference in small-worldness between sessions (p < 0.01, Bonferroni corrected).

Figure 3

Area under the curve in the morning session (blue) and the evening session (gray) for degree centrality (A) and betweenness centrality (B) of all 116 brain regions. Significant diurnal fluctuations are represented by red lines. See Table A1 for the description of the areas.