Editor’s Pick: Sleep disruption and Alzheimer's disease progression

Reviewing Editor Chris Colwell, Ph.D. selected this paper and explains why he considers it noteworthy.

Sleep disruption associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) may be an important driver of disease pathology and cognitive decline. This work provides evidence that sleep disruption is an early symptom of disease progression that accelerates cognitive decline in a transgenic mouse model for AD.

Importantly, while females showed an earlier onset of sleep disruption than males, females were comparably resilient and males comparably vulnerable to the negative effects of sleep disruption. Thus, sleep plays an important role in AD progression in a sex-specific manner.

Read the full article:

Sleep Disruption Precedes Forebrain Synaptic Tau Burden and Contributes to Cognitive Decline in a Sex-Dependent Manner in the P301S Tau Transgenic Mouse Model
Shenée C. Martin, Kathryn K. Joyce, Julia S. Lord, Kathryn M. Harper, Viktoriya D. Nikolova, Todd J. Cohen, Sheryl S. Moy, and Graham H. Diering