Brain changes to behavioral problems in children who snore

A large study of children has uncovered evidence that behavioral problems in children who snore may be associated with changes in the structure of their brain's frontal lobe. The findings support early evaluation of children with habitual snoring (snoring three or more nights a week). The research, published in Nature Communications, was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and nine other Institutes, Centers, and Offices of the National Institutes of Health.

The team of researchers mined this wealth of data from more than 11,000 9- and 10-year-old children to examine the relationships among snoring, brain structure, and behavioral problems.

Confirming the results of previous work, their statistical analysis revealed a positive correlation between habitual snoring and behavioral problems, with the children who most frequently snored generally exhibiting worse behavior according to an assessment completed by parents.

The findings further showed that snoring is linked to smaller volumes of multiple regions of the brain's frontal lobe, an area involved in cognitive functions such as problem solving, impulse control, and social interactions.

Reference: Isaiah A, et al. Associations between frontal lobe structure, parent-reported obstructive sleep disordered breathing and childhood behavior in the ABCD dataset. Nature Communications, 2021 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22534-0