Snoring and the health problems that are associated with it is a problem that is presumed to only occur in adults. But new research reveals that it can also happen in children.
According to the study entitled "Associations between frontal lobe structure, parent-reported obstructive sleep disordered breathing and childhood behavior in the ABCD dataset" published in Nature Communications, children who regularly snore show signs of structural changes in their brain that are linked to behavioral and developmental issues.
They observed that frequent child snoring could lead to a lack of focus, hyperactivity, and cognitive challenges that is detrimental to a child's education.
Child Snoring Reduces Gray Matter
The team studied the MRI brain images of over 10,000 children from ages 9 to 10 in the US. They asked parents how often their kids snore and also utilized a checklist to measure different areas of childhood behavior.
Researchers said that those children who snore three times or more in a week have thinner gray matter in the brain than those getting normal sleep. Lack of sleep could reduce gray matter, which contains many neurons responsible for day-to-day activities like impulse control and reasoning skills, HuffPost reported.
Dr. Amal Isaiah, n associate professor of otorhinolaryngology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, explained the study results. He said: "These are parts of the brain responsible for behavioral regulation. ... It applies to maintenance of attention and what we call 'cognitive flexibility,' which is basically regulation of one's own behavior."
Dr. Isaiah added that although their study does not explain a causal effect, frequent child snoring could be linked to behavioral problems. Talking about biology, he said that snoring means that air is not flowing freely.
That means that children snoring could be waking up frequently or that it changes the way the children's blood carries oxygen to the brains, suggesting that they are not getting enough oxygenated blood. Dr. Isaiah hypothesized that it is also possible that either or both of those mechanisms could be the reason for the changes in brain structure and a child's behavior.
Child Snoring Should Be Taken Seriously
The study gives parents another reason not to ignore child snoring. Dr. Isaiah said that brain changes due to frequent snoring in children are similar to what can be observed in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, International Business Times reported. This explains the loss of cognitive control, which is associated with disruptive behavior.
According to researchers, over seven million Americans suffer from obstructive sleeping disorders, such as snoring, mouth breathing, and breathing pauses during sleep. A significant number of those people could be misdiagnosed with ADHD and treated with stimulants, which complicates sleeping even further, Fox News reported.
Dr. Isaiah pointed out that the largest study on the association between child snoring and brain abnormalities is strong evidence that brain imaging serves an important purpose in diagnosing sleep disorders in children, particularly snoring.
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