WASHINGTON Blank Argentina Jersey , Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- An American study shows that a disorder in sleep and wake cycle might be early signs for Alzheimer's disease.
The research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has indicated that the circadian rhythm disruption occurs much earlier in people whose memories are intact but whose brain scans show early, preclinical evidence of Alzheimer's.
The findings, published Monday in the journal of JAMA Neurology, could help doctors identify people at risk of Alzheimer's earlier than currently is possible, since Alzheimer's damage can take root in the brain 15 to 20 years before clinical symptoms appear.
"It wasn't that the people in the study were sleep-deprived Augusto Fernandez Argentina Jersey ," said first author Erik S. Musiek, an assistant professor of neurology. "But their sleep tended to be fragmented. Sleeping for eight hours at night is very different from getting eight hours of sleep in one-hour increments during daytime naps."
The researchers also conducted a separate study in mice, to be published Jan. 30 in The Journal of Experimental Medicine, showing that similar circadian disruptions accelerate the development of amyloid plaques in the brain, which are linked to Alzheimer's.
Previous studies at Washington University Angel Di Maria Argentina Jersey , conducted in people and in animals, have found that levels of amyloid fluctuate in predictable ways during the day and night. Amyloid levels decrease during sleep, and several studies have shown that levels increase when sleep is disrupted or when people don't get enough deep sleep, according to research by senior author, Yo-El Ju.
"In this new study Argentina World Cup Jerseys , we found that people with preclinical Alzheimer's disease had more fragmentation in their circadian activity patterns, with more periods of inactivity or sleep during the day and more periods