| Title: | Imaging chronotype: exploring the anatomical correlates of circadian preference. |
| Lead Institution: | Brunel University London |
| Principal investigator: | Dr Ray Norbury |
Application 30833
WARNING: the interactive features of this website use CSS3, which your browser does not support. To use the full features of this website, please update your browser.
About
Circadian rhythms drive our preferences for wakefulness, periods of activity and sleep and increasing evidence suggests that late chronotype is a risk factor for depression. Acute depression and risk for depression are associated with reduced hippocampal volume and may, therefore, reflect a neural vulnerability marker for this disorder. The aim of the current proposal is to explore hippocampal volume in a large sample and relate this to chronotype. It is hypothesised that, similar to depressed patients, late chronotype will be associated with reduced hippocampal volume which may, in part, confer risk for future depression in these individuals. Recent years have seen major advances in the availability of shared neuroimaging data which is essential to increasing the speed of scientific discovery and maximising value from public investment. The UK Biobank hosts the world?s largest cohort of neuroimaging data (> 10,000 participants) plus numerous measures of lifestyle etc. including circadian preference. The current proposal will take advantage of this large neuroimaging database to better understand why late chronotypes are at increased for developing depression and the findings may have important theoretical and clinical implications for the prevention and treatment of depression and open up avenues for further research. Magnetic Resonance Imaging data, chronotype, age, gender, handedness, depression status and neuroticism scores will be requested. Hippocampal volume will be derived using freely available software and the relationship between chronotype and hippocampal volume analysed using regression techniques. It is anticipated that data from the entire neuroimaging cohort will be used (> 10,000 data sets)2 Publications
| Pub ID | Title | Author(s) | Year | Journal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4488 | Chronotype, depression and hippocampal volume: cross-sectional associations from the UK Biobank | Ray Norbury | 2019 | Chronobiology International |
| 4715 | Diurnal Preference and Grey Matter Volume in a Large Population of Older Adults: Data from the UK Biobank | Ray Norbury | 2020 | Journal of Circadian Rhythms |
Enabling scientific discoveries that improve human health