New research has identified functional connectivities in the brain that mediate the association between depressive symptoms and poor sleep quality, reports PsyPost.
“Nowadays depression and sleep problem are two of the most prevalent mental problems. To make matters worse, depression and sleep problems often go hand-in-hand, which has been observed more than a hundred years,” said study author Jianfeng Feng of Fudan University.
About 75% of depressed patients report significant levels of sleep disturbance and people with insomnia also have a higher risk of developing depression.
“However, until now, there was not an efficient way for the treatment of these two problems due to the poor understanding of their underlying mechanism,” Feng explained. “Our research group has worked on depression for more than ten years and produced many significant results. For example, the findings of our previous work published in Brain have shown promise for new treatments.”
