STRUCTURAL BRAIN DIFFERENCES ASSOCIATED WITH LIVING ALONE AND SLEEP DISORDER IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Living alone has become increasingly common among university students, particularly when they first leave home for college. Although sleep problems are prevalent in university students, the association between living arrangements and sleep disorder remains unclear. It also remains unclear how sleep disorder is related to brain structure in young adults. This study examined whether living alone is associated with greater sleep disorder and altered brain structure compared with living with family.This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine. A total of 1,509 university students (mean age=20.78 years; 44% female ) were included in this study. Sleep disorder was assessed using the General Health Questionnaire-28. Voxel-based morphometry was used to examine gray matter volume difference between students living alone and those living with family, controlling for age, gender, total brain volume, and loneliness.
Results showed that young adults living alone exhibited significantly higher levels of sleep disturbance and greater gray matter volume in the right medial orbital gyrus (MOG) compared with students living with family. Multiple regression analyses conducted with the right MOG volume as the dependent variable revealed that sleep disorder was a significant predictor of right MOG volume even after controlling depressive symptoms measured by the Beck Depression Inventory.
These findings suggest that living alone is associated with increased sleep disorder and lower gray matter volume in the right MOG in young adults. Sleep disorder may represent a potential pathway linking living arrangements to brain structural alterations during this developmental period.