They discover a possible early sign of Alzheimer’s that affects sleep quality

The dream is one of the fundamental functions of our bodyand it is essential for our physical and mental well -being. In fact, sleep disorders (such as those suffering up to 48% of the Spanish adult population, according to data from the Sen) They are considered a risk factor in a large number of diseases, including some neurodegenerative such as dementia.

Therefore, there is great interest among scientists for understanding exactly what ways The dream can affect or be affected for this type of pathologies. Finding answers to this issue could be the key to finding earlier detection methods or even to design preventive strategies.

The latency of ReM, key feature

A new study published in the specialized media Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association He has concluded that there is a key characteristic of our dream that could be related to the pathological development of Alzheimer’s. Specifically, it is the time that We take to reach the fast -eye movements phase or rem.

To achieve this finding, the authors of the study 128 participants from at least 58 years of age recruitedof which 64 had a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and 41 had mild cognitive impairment. Subsequently, they gathered information from their medical records, they had intracranial magnetic resonances, cognitive tests and took blood samples.

Also, all volunteers underwent a test called PolySomnigraphycapable of examining brain waves and other physical functions such as eyes movement or breathing during sleep. In this way, the researchers were able to detect when they entered the REM phase of the sleep.

A significant association

Likewise, participants were made positron emission tomography scanners To evaluate their levels of defective beta amyloid protein, present in the brain tissue of people with Alzheimer’s, and the concentrations of three biomarkers present in the blood plasma were measured. Finally, they carried out statistical analysis by adjusting factors such as the body mass index, sex or if they suffered diabetes; Also, they took into account the status of the APOE ε4 gene, which increases the risk of Alzheimer’s.

This method showed that the participants with the greatest latency of REM (the time that took them this phase of the dream) were the ones who had higher levels of p-tau181 and beta amyloid proteins. These results were independent of the status of the APOE gene ε4 and even their values in cognitive performance tests.

The relationship between the factors was so significant that it suggests A clear association between the latency of sleep Rem and the pathological characteristics of Alzheimer’s, even in the absence of deterioration of cognitive functions.

An early indicator potential

The ReM sleep phase is fundamental in brain processes such as vivid dreamsinformation processing or memory consolidation. Although this study, due to its nature, is not able to establish causal relationships, it seems logical that there is a relationship with Alzheimer’s.

Be that as it may, these results point to the latency of ReM sleep as at least An indicator potential of Alzheimer’s disease, present even before cognitive impairment. At least, they establish this phase of sleep as another area of interest in research on dementia and neurodegenerative diseases.

References

Spanish Society of Neurology (2024). 48% of the Spanish adult population and 25% of the child population do not have a quality dream. Consulted online January 30, 2025.

Jiangli Jin, Jiong Chen, Clémence Cavailès, Kristine Yaffe, Joseph Winer, Laura Stankeviciute, Brendan P. Lucey, Xiao Zhou, Song Gao, Dantao Peng, Yue Leng. Association of Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Latency with Multimodal Biomarkers of Alzheimer’s Disease. Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association (2025). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.14495

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