STRUCTURAL MRI STUDY ON THE EFFECTS OF A FULLY REMOTELY DELIVERED AND INNOVATIVE MIND-BODY INTERVENTION ON IMPROVING INSOMNIA SYMPTOMS IN ADOLESCENTS: A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL

Aims: Adolescents in the United States are increasingly not meeting recommended sleep guidelines, putting them at risk for decreased academic performance and a variety of mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety. This study used structural MRI to investigate gray matter volume correlates of sleep improvement in response to a fully remotely delivered, whole-person health oriented, mind-body intervention (TARA) in adolescents.
Methods: Using a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design, 100 female and male adolescents ages 14 to 18 years from a community sample with a range of insomnia symptoms were randomly assigned into one group receiving the TARA intervention and one control group. To quantify gray matter volume (GMV) changes in regions of interest and changes in sleep, each participant received a structural MRI before and after the study, with an accompanying measure of insomnia.
Results: We found TARA intervention improved insomnia compared to control (F ratio=4.94, p=0.029, partial eta-squared=0.057). Lower baseline left subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) GMV significantly predicted sleep improvements in TARA group (F = 4.0794 , p =0.0467), while increased pregenual ACC GMV was significantly associated with sleep improvements (F = 4.469, p =0.0375).
Conclusion: Our results support that our TARA intervention has potential to be an accessible, whole-person health focused intervention to improve adolescent sleep in the midst of increasingly prevalent sleep disturbance in teens. The associations between ACC GMV, baseline sleep quality, and sleep improvements from our TARA intervention suggest mechanistic links between ACC and sleep.