A new study found that a lack of time in slow wave and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is linked to reduced brain volume in areas susceptible to Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers examined data from 270 individuals and discovered that poor sleep was associated with brain atrophy over time. The phenomenon was particularly acute in the inferior parietal region of the brain, an area impacted during the initial stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
This is not the first time poor sleep has been linked to cognitive decline. Last year, The Dallas Expressreported that research from UC Berkeley, Stanford, and UC Irvine found that adults who experienced brain changes derived from Alzheimer’s displayed better memory recall when they registered more sleep. The study’s researchers theorized that sleep could be a protective factor against deteriorating cognition.
In another study from earlier this year, researchers found that taking longer to reach a dream state, also known as the REM phase of sleep, was associated with a higher chance of developing dementia.
The latest findings, however, show that disrupting critical sleep may actually be shrinking our brains.
“Our findings provide preliminary evidence that reduced neuroactivity during sleep may contribute to brain atrophy, thereby potentially increasing the risk of Alzheimer’s disease,” said the study’s lead author Gawon Cho, a doctorate in public health and postdoctoral associate at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, per Neuroscience News.
“These results are particularly significant because they help characterize how sleep deficiency, a prevalent disturbance among middle-aged and older adults, may relate to Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis and cognitive impairment.”
The good news is that improving your so-called sleep architecture, the structure and organization of your sleep cycles, is one way to reduce your risk of developing the cognitive disease. This can be done by ensuring you allocate enough time for sleep, consistently going to bed at the same time every evening, and limiting caffeine use, especially late in the day.
“Sleep architecture may be a modifiable risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, posing the opportunity to explore interventions to reduce risk or delay Alzheimer’s onset,” said Cho.