Multi-organ imaging and genetics show the impact of sleep patterns on the human brain and body

Commun Med (Lond). 2026 May 20. doi: 10.1038/s43856-026-01656-w. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Sleep is crucial for overall physical and mental health, concerning organs such as the brain, heart, eye, liver, kidney, and lung. Nonetheless, a thorough understanding of how sleep relates to anatomical features of these organs, as well as their genetic bases, remains elusive.

METHODS: We analyzed ten sleep traits in relation to 623 imaging-derived biomarkers capturing the structure and function of multiple organs from UK Biobank (UKB). We examined phenotypic and genetic sleep-imaging associations, identified shared genetic loci, assessed genetic correlations between sleep traits and a wide range of diseases, and performed mediation analyses to evaluate the role of organ-related diseases in sleep-imaging connections.

RESULTS: Here we show that sleep traits are robustly associated with the structure and function of multiple organs at both the phenotypic and genetic levels, including brain functions measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and body composition traits in abdominal MRI. Sleep and imaging traits share genetic influences across 51 genomic regions, 23 of which show evidence of colocalized causal genetic effects. We also exhibit genetic similarities between sleep traits and diseases affecting multiple organ systems, with psychiatric disorders consistently showing the strongest genetic correlations and causal links. Furthermore, many sleep-imaging associations are mediated by diseases within or across organ systems.

CONCLUSIONS: These findings demonstrate that sleep is broadly linked to brain and body health and influenced in part by shared genetic factors. Integrating sleep traits with multi-organ imaging measures provides a framework for characterizing organ-specific sleep associations and their potential relevance to disease.

PMID:42162304 | DOI:10.1038/s43856-026-01656-w