Sleep disorders represent a heterogeneous spectrum of neurological conditions, including central hypersomnia (e.g., narcolepsy, idiopathic hypersomnia), circadian rhythm sleep-wake disorders, neurologically related sleep disorders (e.g., stroke-, Parkinson’s-, dementia-, infection- and immune-related), parasomnias (NREM and REM-related), insomnia disorders, and sleep-related breathing disorders. These disorders profoundly affect quality of life and are associated with neurodegenerative, psychiatric, metabolic, immune, and cardiovascular diseases. Currently, large-scale, multimodal studies investigating the genetic, biological, and neurological mechanisms of sleep disorders are lacking.
This project will leverage UK Biobank’s full data resources-including demographics, lifestyle, cognition, mental health, sleep behaviors, social interaction, diet, environmental factors, blood biochemistry, metabolomics, proteomics, immunomics, genomics, neuroimaging, accelerometer data, and electronic health records (EHR)-to systematically explore the epidemiology, genetic susceptibility, biological pathways, immune regulation, and neural correlates of sleep disorders.
Research objectives:
1. Characterize epidemiological patterns, subtype differences, and comorbidities of sleep disorders;
2. Identify genetic susceptibility loci and risk profiles via GWAS, PRS, WGS, and exome data;
3. Integrate biochemical, metabolic, immune, and proteomic data to reveal molecular mechanisms and systemic biological pathways;
4. Use MRI, fMRI, and DTI to investigate brain structural and functional changes associated with sleep disorders;
5. Apply Mendelian randomization and machine learning models to explore causal relationships with neurological, metabolic, and immune diseases;
6. Build multimodal predictive models for early detection and precision intervention.
