Frequent nighttime awakenings linked to higher dementia risk, study finds
A new study suggests that frequent nighttime awakenings may be an early sign of dementia, especially in those with a high genetic risk.
Key Takeaways
AIA study published in the journal "Sleep" has found that frequent awakenings during the night may serve as an early indicator of potential dementia, even before clinical symptoms appear.
Researchers analyzed sleep patterns in more than 500 healthy volunteers and calculated each participant's genetic risk for dementia based on their genetic data. They found that people aged 50 to 69 with a higher genetic risk experienced more frequent partial nighttime awakenings—brief episodes of brain activity that do not fully wake the person but disrupt normal sleep structure.
The research team noted that this association was not observed in younger participants. The study also focused on the locus coeruleus, a small region in the brainstem involved in regulating the sleep-wake cycle and known to be one of the first areas where abnormal proteins linked to Alzheimer's disease accumulate.
Sleep disturbances as an early indicator
The scientists added that sleep disturbances may reflect early changes in the function of this brain region, years before disease symptoms develop. They emphasized that the current findings represent a statistical association and are not yet a diagnostic tool, but believe that analyzing sleep patterns could one day become a simple way to identify people at higher risk of dementia.
In a related context, another recent scientific study found that regularly sleeping more than 8.5 hours per night may be associated with higher levels of a protein considered an early marker of Alzheimer's disease.