Disrupted Sleep-Dependent Neural Oscillations and Transcriptomic Changes in the Cacna1g Loss-of-Function Mouse Model Implicated in Schizophrenia

Abstract

Sleep is an essential biological process for maintaining brain function, and impaired sleep microarchitecture is a well-established feature of schizophrenia (SCZ). Rare loss-of-function variants in CACNA1G, encoding the T-type calcium channel CaV3.1, confer substantial risk for SCZ, implicating sleep-regulatory circuits in disease pathophysiology. Here, we first show that among individuals with SCZ, carriers of rare CACNA1G missense variants exhibit more pronounced alterations in sleep neurophysiology than non-carriers, identifying a human phenotype suggestive of altered channel function. Motivated by this observation, we examined the consequences of Cacna1g loss of function in mice. Cacna1g deficiency produced profound disruptions in sleep microarchitecture, including reduced sleep spindles, altered slow oscillations, impaired spindle-slow oscillation coupling, and reduced cortical synchrony--closely recapitulating neurophysiological signatures observed in individuals with schizophrenia. Beyond sleep structure, Cacna1g loss disrupted the normal coordination of brain rhythms across the 24-hour cycle, most notably abolishing diurnal modulation of theta oscillations. At the molecular level, Cacna1g loss uncoupled sleep-wake state from gene and protein regulation, producing widespread, sleep-phase-biased transcriptional and synaptic alterations across brain regions and cell types, particularly in cortical excitatory neurons. These network and molecular disruptions were accompanied by behavioral hyperactivity during the active phase. Together, these findings establish CACNA1G/CaV3.1 as a key regulator linking sleep-dependent brain dynamics to molecular homeostasis and behavior, and provide a mechanistic framework through which genetic risk for SCZ may drive disease-relevant sleep and circuit dysfunction. One Sentence SummaryLoss of CACNA1G disrupts sleep rhythms and gene regulation, creating a mismatch between brain state and behavior linked to schizophrenia.