Habitual sleep duration is associated with the cortical organisation of brain network controllability

Longer workday sleep in 15,799 UK Biobank adults is linked to higher modal controllability of somatomotor systems and lower controllability of visual cortex.

• Why it matters: Sleep supports adaptive brain function, but its relationship to structural network properties that enable flexible brain-state transitions is not well understood.
• What they did: The study combined wrist-accelerometer habitual sleep with diffusion MRI connectomes, testing controllability measures in a discovery sample (15,799) and replicating in a locked test set (n = 4,740).
• The result: The system-specific controllability signature reproduced, was robust to sensitivity analyses, reflected a redistribution of connection weight, and showed no comparable association for weekend catch-up sleep.