A new study reveals five distinct “sleep-biopsychosocial” profiles, each associated with different health, cognitive, lifestyle, and brain connectivity signatures.
Researchers have identified five distinct sleep profiles that correlate with variations in mental and physical health, cognitive ability, lifestyle factors, and even patterns of brain connectivity. The work, published in PLOS Biology, used data from 770 healthy adults drawn from the Human Connectome Project.
Unlike earlier studies that focus on a single sleep metric—such as duration or quality—the researchers deployed a multivariate, data-driven approach to capture how multiple sleep dimensions interact with psychosocial variables. They derived five sleep-biopsychosocial profiles by combining factors like sleep duration, frequency of disruptions, use of sleep medications, and subjective satisfaction with sleep.
Each profile carried its own associations. One “poor sleep” profile was closely linked to greater depression, anxiety, stress and worse psychopathology, while another “sleep resilient” profile showed elevated psychopathology but without clear reports of poor sleep. Other profiles emphasized short sleep duration, sleep aid usage, or fragmented sleep, each tied to distinct cognitive, behavioral, and lifestyle traits.
Importantly, the researchers found that each sleep profile corresponded to unique patterns of brain functional connectivity. As one investigator explained, “Sleep is made up of many dimensions, not just how long we sleep. By analyzing more than 700 young adults, we discovered five distinct ‘sleep profiles’ … Each profile carried its own distinctive link in health, lifestyle, and cognition, and even showed unique neuroimaging traits using functional MRI.”
Lead author Aurore Perrault added: “Our study showed that different aspects of sleep are related, but can also be separable domains with specific connections to biopsychosocial factors (lifestyle, mental and physical health and cognitive performances). This highlights the importance of considering the full picture of an individual’s sleep to help clinicians make more accurate assessments and guide treatment.” Co-author Valeria Kebets observed, “The dominance of mental health markers in most of the profiles is not surprising as sleep is one of the five key domains of human functioning likely to affect mental health.”