Altered cortical structure network in children with obstructive sleep apnea

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is characterized by recurrent airway collapse during sleep, resulting in intermittent hypoxia and sleep fragmentation that may contribute to alternations in brain structure and function. We hypothesized that OSA in children reorganizes and alters cortical structure, which can cause changes in cortical thickness correlation between brain regions across subjects. We constructed cortical structure networks based on cortical thickness measurements from 41 controls (age 15.54 ± 1.66 years, male 19) and 50 children with OSA (age 15.32 ± 1.65 years, male 29). The global (clustering coefficient [CC], path length, and small-worldness) and regional (nodal betweenness centrality, NBC) network properties and hub region distributions were examined between groups. We found increased CCs in OSA compared to controls across a wide range of network densities (p-value