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News Story
University of Kentucky scientists have discovered the cause of sleep loss in patients with Alzheimer’s disease and how to help restore hours of rest.
They originally set out to see how sleep loss worsened over the course of the disease, believing Alzheimer’s patients lost sleep because their neurons were dying or because of amyloid plaques, which are proteins that form in the brain and are believed to be a significant driver ofAlzheimer’s.
Instead, they discovered thatmicroglia, which are brain immune cells, are so busy trying to address amyloid plaques that they are keeping the brain active and causing sleep loss.
Shannon Macauley, an associate professor of physiology in theUK College of Medicine, said these findings, which were published last month inAlzheimer’s & Dementia, which is the Alzheimer’s Association’s journal, means sleep could be also used as an early diagnostic tool for the disease.
“The idea that we can find sleep as this early biomarker of when we start to see these pathological changes, and that maybe it’s just more binary than having to know exactly what the threshold is, is actually really exciting to consider if you think about sleep as a biomarker,” she told the Lantern. “That was just really exciting to us and completely opposite of what we all had hypothesized. We thought that aging in and of itself would really just make your sleep really poor, and that’s not what we found. Certainly, it does impact sleep in some regards, but not to the extent that we would have hypothesized, meaning that there is something pathological about sleep problems.”
Natalie Sutton, the executive director for the Alzheimer’s Association’s Kentucky Chapter, said early detection and early diagnoses can help people makelifestyle changesthat can help slow the disease and may open doors to research trials and expanded treatment options.
“With sleep, similar to any other symptoms, it’s important for people to be aware of what is normal for them and what they might see as a change for them, and then when they experience that change, to make sure that they’re talking with a healthcare provider about that change,” Sutton said.
Quality of life
Alzheimer’s disease, which falls under the umbrella of dementia, is characterized by memory loss and is incurable.Treatments exist, though, includingLecanemab(brand nameLeqembi), which underwentclinical trials at the University of Kentucky. This is an antibody that targets — and in some cases, removes — amyloid plaques from the brain, and has shown somesuccessin slowing cognitive decline.
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Nicholas Constantino, a recent PhD neuroscience graduate who works in Macauley’s lab and is the first author of the new research, said it’s unclear if sleep restoration could increase a patient’s lifespan, but it can certainly improve quality of life.
“If you’ve ever pulled an all-nighter, you notice the effects pretty quickly the next day of how it’s hard to concentrate, it’s hard to focus, you don’t feel good, your whole body doesn’t feel good, and that there’s a rebound period to that,” he said
With the right medication — the UK lab is now studying a way to use drugs already approved by the Food and Drug Administration to calm microglia cells — Alzheimer’s patients could gain back hours of sleep a night.
“Quality of life is so important. As we think broadly about people who are living in their later years of life, having not only time but quality time is really what most people want, right?” Sutton said. “It’s what they’re looking for, and so I wouldn’t underestimate what it means to those living with the disease and their families to improve that quality.”
Research that helps more people get screened, diagnosed early and treated will help a huge number of people in Kentucky, from patients to their families and loved ones to the health care system.
There werearound 80,000Kentuckians aged 65 and older living with an Alzheimer’s diagnosis last year, according to a report that theLantern reportedon at the time. There are also nearly 200,000 Kentucky residents providing unpaid care for a loved one with Alzheimer’s — care Sutton said, that is worth nearly $7 billion.
