Meta-Analysis of Glymphatic Dysfunction Across Sleep Disorders Using DTI-ALPS Index

A 2026 meta-analysis synthesizing data from 19 observational studies published up to December 31, 2025, involving 2,315 participants. The study examines the diffusion tensor imaging analysis along the perivascular space (DTI-ALPS) index to assess glymphatic system function in patients with various sleep disorders compared to healthy controls. It was authored by Xiaoxin Zhang and shared under a CC-BY-4.0 license.

Use Cases

• Validate the DTI-ALPS index as a biomarker for glymphatic dysfunction based on the pooled analysis results.
• Compare the severity of glymphatic impairment across specific sleep disorders like obstructive sleep apnea and idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder using the reported standardized mean differences.
• Assess methodological heterogeneity and publication bias in neuroimaging meta-analyses based on the reported I² statistic and bias assessment.
• Investigate potential shared neural pathways across sleep pathologies using the synthesized evidence for glymphatic dysfunction.

Strengths

• Synthesizes data from 19 studies with a total of 2,315 participants, providing a substantial evidence base.
• Includes detailed statistical results such as standardized mean differences, confidence intervals, and heterogeneity measures (I² = 94.7%).
• Conducts subgroup analyses for specific disorders like obstructive sleep apnea and performs meta-regression and sensitivity analyses.

Limitations

• The dataset is a 43.0 KB PDF document; the underlying raw tabular data from the 19 studies is not directly accessible.
• The description notes extreme statistical heterogeneity (I² = 94.7%), which limits the interpretability of the pooled effect.
• Column-level documentation for any underlying data is absent; field semantics must be inferred from the published paper.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Xiaoxin Zhang.

Collection Method

Systematic search and meta-analysis of observational studies from PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library.

Time Range

Studies from database inception to December 31, 2025.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-15 05:44:12.

Geography

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