ENTr SANDMAN
How do sleep problems affect brain health and disease progression in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, and can treating sleep improve long-term outcomes?
Background
Sleep plays a critical role in keeping the brain healthy, helping regulate memory, movement, and daily functioning. In people with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, sleep problems are extremely common and often appear early, sometimes years before a disease diagnosis. Research suggests that sleep problems and brain degeneration affect each other over time, creating a cycle in which poor sleep worsens brain disease and brain disease further disrupts sleep. Despite this close relationship, sleep problems are often treated separately from neurological care and are rarely used to guide diagnosis or track disease progression. Different types of sleep problems, including insomnia and sleep-disordered breathing, may affect not only brain health such thinking, mood, and movement, but may also impact overall health. Changes in sleep patterns may reflect underlying brain changes long before severe symptoms appear. Poor sleep can also increase use of healthcare, caregiver strain, and the need for long-term care. However, most studies examine sleep problems, brain health, and daily outcomes in isolation, making it difficult to understand how these factors interact over time or how treating sleep might change the course of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
Research Plan
The researchers will study adults with and without Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease using a shared, comprehensive clinical approach. Volunteers will complete detailed interviews, memory and cognition tests, sleep questionnaires, and movement assessments to capture symptoms across multiple domains. Sleep will be monitored at home for one to two weeks using wearable devices, followed by an overnight sleep study in the laboratory to provide a detailed picture of sleep quality and brain rhythms. The volunteers will also undergo brain scans and provide blood and skin samples to measure biological markers related to inflammation, nerve function, and overall brain health to monitor disease. Some people volunteering for the study will receive sleep treatments, such as cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia or breathing support for sleep apnea, and will be followed over time to examine how improving sleep affects cognition, brain health, daily functioning, and disease progression over time. In addition, the study will track healthcare use and caregiver burden to understand how sleep problems and their treatment influence real-world socioeconomic outcomes.
Impact
This research will help understand how sleep problems contribute to cognitive decline and disease progression in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. The findings may support earlier identification of sleep-related risk factors, help guide personalized sleep treatments and therapies, and improve quality of life for patients and caregivers. In the long term, this work could inform new strategies that use sleep as a target to slow neurodegeneration and reduce healthcare burden.