80 to 90% of patients with behavioral disorders in REM sleep will be affected by a neurodegenerative disease according to the results of this study published in the journal Trends in Neuroscience. This disease would precede and announce the development of chronic neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s disease or various forms of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease.
REM sleep behavior disorders predict neurological disease
REM sleep behavior disorder is part of sleep disturbances. People prone to this pathology live their dreams. While they are sound asleep, they talk, shout, gesture, and can even injure themselves. These involuntary and surprising behaviors are sometimes violent and are often linked to the content of a dream. Normally during this phase of sleep, the muscles of sleepers are temporarily paralyzed and inactive.
Researchers at the University of Toronto revealed in their study that living dreams while sleeping would precede and predict neurodegeneration in patients 80% of the time.
“At an early stage, neurodegeneration could first affect the areas of the brain that control sleep before spreading to the stage of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease,” says John Peever, professor of biology at the University of Toronto. “Behavioral disorders in the REM phase not only precede but predict the development of neurodegeneration which will lead to neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease”.
In France, more than 850,000 people have Alzheimer’s diseaseand nearly 225,000 new cases are diagnosed per year.
