Alzheimer's Disease Possibly Linked To Sleep Deprivation

sonnejw0 writes "NewScientist is reporting a link between sleep deprivation and Alzheimer's Disease via an increased amyloid-beta plaque load thought responsible for a large part of the symptoms of the disease, in mice. Medication to abrogate insomnia reduced the plaque load. Also discussed is a recently discovered sleep cycle of amyloid-beta deposition in the brain, in which levels decrease while asleep. 'Holtzman also tried sending the mice to sleep with a drug that is being trialled for insomnia, called Almorexant. This reduced the amount of plaque-forming protein. He suggests that sleeping for longer could limit the formation of plaques, and perhaps block it altogether.'"

Comments

Re:Why do we sleep?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Could delaying the inevitable onset of Alzheimer's be the biological function of sleep? Last I heard, the purpose of sleep wasn't entirely clear

What? No. There are at least two functions of sleep that I know of: one is cleaning up misshapen proteins that accumulate during the day (and may be what causes tiredness). The other is transcription of short-term memory into long-term memory. Evolutionarily speaking, nobody ever lived long enough to get Alzheimers. Those who did wandered off into the tundra and didn't burden the tribe any longer.