Alzheimer's Insufficient sleep enhances protein deposits in the brain

Can protect adequate sleep from Alzheimer's?

Researchers now found that sleep deprivation massively accelerates the spread of toxic accumulations of tau protein. These clusters are a harbinger of brain damage and a crucial step in the development of dementia.

Washington University researchers have found in their current research that sleep deprivation exacerbates the development of dementia. The physicians published the results of their study in the English language journal "Science".

There are a large number of people with sleep problems. Disturbed sleep has a negative effect on our health. (Image: Dan Race / fotolia.com)

Sleep is important

Sleep disorders have been associated with Alzheimer's disease for a long time. So far, however, little was known about how exactly occurring sleep disorders drive the disease. The new study on humans and mice showed that sleep deprivation increases the concentration of the important Tau protein for Alzheimer's disease. In subsequent follow-up studies on mice, the experts then found that insomnia also accelerates the spread of toxic dewlaps in the brain.

Lack of sleep and its consequences

The scientists explain that a lack of sleep drives the development of the disease. This indicated that healthy sleep can maintain the health of the brain. The interesting thing about this study is that real factors like sleep can influence how fast the disease spreads in the brain, explains study author Dr. David Holtzman of the Washington University School of Medicine. Sleep disorders and Alzheimer's have also been implicated in some other Alzheimer's protein (amyloid beta). However, this study shows that sleep disorders, especially the damaging tau protein, increase rapidly and spread over time, the expert adds.

Disease process can be delayed and slowed down by sleep

The brain needs time to recover from the stress of the day. It is still unclear whether adequate sleep will effectively protect people from Alzheimer's aging, explain the physicians. But enough sleep can not hurt, and these and other data suggest that sleep can even help delay and slow down the disease process if it's already started.

What significance does sleep have for the development of dew??

Tau also occurs in the brains of healthy people, but under certain conditions, accumulations can occur that injure nearby tissue and predict a cognitive decline. The results of the study show that the amount of tau is increased in elderly poorly sleeping people. However, it was not clear whether the lack of sleep directly increases the concentration of tau, or whether sleep and the amount of tau are otherwise related. For the study, the researchers measured the tau levels in mice and people with normal and disturbed sleep. Mice are nocturnal, and the experts found that the tau concentration in the fluid surrounding the brain cells was about twice as high at night when the animals were more alert and active compared to tau a day when the mice were rested.

A sleepless night increased the tau value by about 50 percent

The same effect was also observed in humans. The physicians examined the so-called cerebrospinal fluid of eight subjects after a night in which the participants had slept normally. The experiment was repeated after people were kept awake all night. Due to a sleepless night, the tau value rose by about 50 percent. All in all, the results indicate that dew is routinely released through normal thinking and action during the waking hours of the day. The release of dew decreases during sleep, so that dew can be broken down. Sleep deprivation interrupts this cycle, which builds up dew and makes it more likely that the protein will accumulate in harmful lumps.

Tau builds up in parts that are important for memory

In people with Alzheimer's disease, so-called tau-tangles tend to build up in memory-important parts of the brain, the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex. From there they spread to other brain regions. As dew spreads and more and more areas of the brain are affected, it becomes increasingly difficult for those affected to think clearly. To investigate whether sleep is affected by the spread of Tau-Tangles, the researchers provided mouse mice with hippocampi with tiny lumps of dew and kept the animals awake for longer each day. Tau lumps were injected into a separate group of mice, but the animals were allowed to sleep whenever they wanted. After four weeks, the dew accumulations had spread further in the sleepless mice than in the dormant animals.

Sleep deprivation also affects the risk of Parkinson's?

In particular, the new accumulations of tau occurred in the same areas of the brain that are affected in Alzheimer's patients. The researchers also found that sleep disorders increase the release of synuclein protein, a hallmark of Parkinson's disease. People with Parkinson's often have sleep problems, as do people with Alzheimer's. (As)