A study published in the journal "Sleep" revealed that frequent nighttime awakenings may be an early indicator of dementia, before symptoms of the disease appear.
During the study, researchers analyzed the sleep patterns of more than 500 healthy volunteers and calculated the genetic risk of developing the disease for each participant based on their genetic data. They found that people in the 50-69 age group with a higher genetic risk experienced a greater frequency of nocturnal partial awakenings—brief episodes of brain activity that do not lead to full awakening but disrupt the normal sleep structure. This relationship was not observed in younger participants.
The researchers also focused on the "blue spot" in the brainstem, a small area the size of a grain of rice that is involved in regulating the sleep-wake cycle and is considered one of the first areas where abnormal proteins associated with Alzheimer's accumulate. According to the scientists, sleep disturbances may reflect early changes in the function of this area, years before the clinical symptoms of the disease appear.
Scientists emphasize that these results are still within the realm of statistical correlation and are not currently a diagnostic tool, but they believe that sleep analysis in the future may become a simple and readily available tool for identifying people most at risk of developing dementia.
It is worth noting that a recent scientific study also showed that regular sleep of more than 8.5 hours a night may be associated with higher levels of a protein that is considered an early indicator of Alzheimer's disease.
