https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-026-02409-5
Regular Article
Self-organizing structure of a sleep–cognition network: centrality, modularity, and bridge dynamics in adolescents and young adults
Cyberpsychology Department, Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, 603022, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
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Received:
28
April
2026
Accepted:
23
May
2026
Published online:
3
June
2026
Abstract
Complex systems exhibit a capacity for self-organization whereby structured patterns emerge from local interactions among components without centralized control. Psychological functioning represents one such system, yet the self-organizing architecture of sleep-related, emotional, and cognitive processes remains poorly characterized. The present study examined the network structure of subjective sleep quality, daytime dysfunction, emotion regulation strategies, and subjective cognitive functioning in a sample of 601 adolescents and young adults (aged 15–30 years; M = 21.9, SD = 4.2) recruited from educational institutions in Pakistan. A Gaussian graphical model estimated via EBICglasso regularization was used to characterize the modular organization, strength centrality, and bridge centrality of the network. The estimated network revealed emergent modular organization comprising three relatively distinct domains: sleep-related variables, emotion regulation, and subjective cognitive functioning. Subjective cognitive functioning variables occupied the most central positions in the network (cognitive symptoms: strength = 0.95; functional impairment: strength = 0.84), suggesting that this domain constitutes the structural core of the system. Daytime dysfunction demonstrated the highest bridge centrality (bridge strength = 0.36), functioning as the primary interface between the sleep domain and subjective cognitive functioning, whereas direct associations between sleep quality and cognitive variables were comparatively weak. The emotion regulation module showed minimal cross-domain connectivity, operating as a relatively isolated subsystem. Stability analysis confirmed the robustness of centrality estimates (CS-coefficient = 0.75). These findings reveal a non-direct structural pathway through which sleep-related processes are connected to subjective cognition via intermediate functional states, and highlight the inherent limitations of pairwise interaction models for capturing the full complexity of sleep–cognition dynamics. Future research should extend this work toward higher-order interaction frameworks, including hypergraph and simplicial complex representations, to characterize group-level dependencies invisible to pairwise models.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2026
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
