Functional connectivity between dorsal attention and default mode networks mediates subjective sleep duration and depression in young females

Background: Depression prevails throughout the world. Young females are more likely to suffer from depression because of lack of sleep.Methods: We recruited 405 young female participants to assess their subjective sleep duration and self-rating depression. The resting-state magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) data were collected to identify the brain regions related to sleep duration and depression, and a mediating model was established among sleep duration, depression and functional connectivity (FC) of rs-fMRI.Results: Correlation analysis indicated that subjective sleep duration was negatively associated with self-rating depression in young females (r =-0.22, p < .001). The network connectivity between dorsal attention network (DAN) and default mode network (DMN) positively correlated with self-rating depression (r = 0.13, p < .05), and negatively correlated with subjective sleep duration (r =-0.14, p < .01). Furthermore, the mediation analysis revealed that the FC of DAN-DMN significantly mediated the effect of sleep duration on depression. Limitations: The study was a cross-section design and the sleep duration of the participants was subjectively reported. Future studies should consider to track the participants longitudinally and to measure the objective sleep duration by actigraph or polysomnography.Conclusions: The participants with less sleep duration are more prone to develop depression feelings. The FC of DAN-DMN mediated the effect of sleep duration on depression. Thus, the FC of DAN-DMN could be consider as a neural target to relieve depression by increasing sleep duration in young females.