Anxiety severity moderates the relation between pineal parenchymal volume and objective sleep problems in peri-adolescent youth

Sleep problems are common in anxiety especially around the onset of adolescence ("peri-adolescence") when symptoms escalate and sleep changes. The pineal gland is a compelling target given its role in sleep behavior and associations with multiple disorders that report problems with sleep. We investigated pineal gland volume and anxiety severity in relation to objective measures of sleep derived from polysomnography in a group of peri-adolescents. Youth (N = 200; 10-13 years) were sampled across a continuum of anxiety severity, with special emphasis on social, generalized, and separation anxiety disorders, to capture variability in key risk profiles and behaviors. This study uses structural scans obtained from participants with polysomnography data (n = 135). Pineal glands were manually segmented into parenchymal and cyst compartments. Linear models were used to assess the interaction between anxiety severity and pineal parenchymal volume (PPV) on sleep onset latency (SOL), sleep efficiency (SE), and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and REM duration. Analyses revealed significant interactions between anxiety severity and PPV on SOL, SE, and NREM duration but not REM duration; whereby elevated anxiety was associated with larger PPV and longer SOL and reduced SE and NREM duration. Pineal morphology may be a contributing factor to sleep problems in anxiety during peri-adolescence.