Having a deep and restorative sleep would help defend against the onset of Alzheimer’s.
- The study of sleep makes it possible to predict changes in the beta-amyloid plaques whose accumulation in the brain leads to the development of Alzheimer’s.
- Getting deep, restorative sleep could slow the development of this disease.
Tell me how you sleep and I’ll tell you if you get Alzheimer’s. American researchers from the University of Berkeley in California suggest that it is possible to predict the onset of Alzheimer’s in a person by studying their sleep. “We’ve found that the sleep you’re having right now is almost like a crystal ball telling you when and how quickly Alzheimer’s will develop in your brain.”, confirms Matthew Walker, professor of psychology and neuroscience at UC Berkeley and lead author of the study. The results were published on September 3 in the journal Current Biology.
Deep sleep, the key
The researchers compared the quality of sleep of 32 healthy elderly people to the buildup in their brains of the toxic plaque known as beta-amyloid. It is a key player in the onset and progression of Alzheimer’s, which destroys memory pathways and other brain functions. Their results show that participants who started having more fragmented sleep and less non-rapid eye movement slow-wave sleep were more likely to show an increase in beta-amyloid over the course of the study and therefore develop disease. “Rather than waiting for someone to develop dementia many years later, we are able to assess how sleep quality predicts changes in beta-amyloid plaques at different times.says Matthew Walker. By doing so, we can measure how quickly this toxic protein builds up in the brain over time, which may indicate the onset of Alzheimer’s disease..”
Deep sleep target of cognitive decline intervention
The results reinforce the link between the onset of Alzheimer’s and lack of sleep. These new findings identify deep sleep as a target for intervention against cognitive decline. “The brain washes out during deep sleep, so there may be a chance of going back to sleep earlier in lifesays the researcher. If deep, restorative sleep can slow this disease, we should make it a top priority. And if doctors know about this link, they can ask their older patients about their sleep quality and suggest sleep as a prevention strategy..”
Travel to the future
Each participant slept an eight-hour night in Matthew Walker’s lab while undergoing polysomnography, a battery of tests that record brain waves, heart rate, blood oxygen levels and other physiological measures of sleep quality. The researchers regularly tracked the growth rate of beta-amyloid protein in the and compared individuals’ beta-amyloid levels to their sleep patterns.
The results support the hypothesis that sleep quality is a biomarker and predictor of disease. “We know there’s a connection between the quality of people’s sleep and what’s going on in the brain, in terms of Alzheimer’s disease. But what hasn’t been tested yet is whether your sleep right now predicts what will happen to you years later.explains Joseph Winer. Effectively measuring sleep helps us travel into the future and estimate where your amyloid buildup will be.” By intervening directly on sleep to improve its quality, researchers believe that this can lead to reducing the risk of, or delaying, the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
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