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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.'"

2 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. Bike, nigga stole my bike! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    adddriaaaannn

  2. Re:Why do we sleep? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    looks like the outage was while /. got some kind of upgrade, and now story URLs sometimes have the story title in them.

    Upgrade? In my slashdot? Unpossible.

    Slashdot got hacked again. Happens every Friday nowadays. Last Friday (or the friday before?) it was ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD appearing in the sidebar links. A few weeks ago there was even a mainpage story about the successful hacking.