Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Language

English

Publication Date

2-1-2026

Journal

Journal of Psychiatric Research

DOI

10.1016/j.jpsychires.2025.11.011

PMID

41270628

Abstract

Sleep dysfunction is common among individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD). Sleep duration and other sleep quality metrics are associated with worse patient clinical and social outcomes. We examined if accumulative stress, gray matter structural volume measured with high-resolution structural brain MRI, diffusion tensor imaging measures of white matter microstructure, and psychopathology (for the schizophrenia group) may act as predictors of sleep quality and compared individuals with SSD (N = 101) and healthy controls (N = 86). We created an adjusted Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI-A) score to measure sleep quality and account for abnormally long sleep duration as dysfunctional. The SSD group reported significantly poorer sleep on most dimensions measured, and 33% of SSD subjects reported sleeping more than 9 h. Hierarchical multiple regression with four blocks (age and sex; number of major life events within the last ten years/accumulative stress; Affect and Positive Symptom subscales of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS); and striatum and pallidum volume) accounted for 28 % of the variance in sleep quality for the SSD group. Negative affective symptoms (β = .335, p = .003) and dorsal striatal volume (β = -.287, p = .004) remained significant predictors of sleep quality in the final model, indicating that higher severity of negative affect and lower striatal volume predict worse sleep quality. Results have several implications for treatment targets and are hypothesis-generating for future research aims.

Keywords

Humans, Male, Female, Schizophrenia, Adult, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Middle Aged, Sleep Wake Disorders, Corpus Striatum, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Affective Symptoms, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Organ Size, Gray Matter, Schizophrenic Psychology, Sleep Quality, Affect, Neuroimaging, Psychosis, Schizophrenia, Serious mental illness, Sleep quality, Stress

Published Open-Access

yes

Download

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.