Accurate research indicates that the solution to that question of whether or not your brain is aging faster or slower may be in something as mundane as your sleep.
Scientists in the University of California, San Francisco and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, have discovered that subtle changes in how the brain puts up during sleep may be used to establish the risk of getting dementia many years before it occurs.
The study published on March 19 on JAMA Network Open applies machine learning to analyse brain waves captured by EEG on individuals at sleep. The findings indicate that there is an alarming pattern: the older a person is, based on such clues, the more prone to dementia.
Based on the findings every interval between 10 years during which the brain ages at a pace exceeding that of the body raises the chances of dementia by close to 40 percent. Conversely, people whose brain age is less than their real age are less likely to be in danger.
The study is based on the data of approximately 7,000 participants of the age between 40 and 94, none of whom had dementia in the beginning. They were followed up between 3.1/2 and seventeen years and in this time, about one thousand individuals contracted the condition.
Instead of using more traditional measures of sleep, including the overall duration of sleep or the duration of various sleep states, the researchers concentrated on more granular characteristics of brain-wave activity. Overall, the model analysed 13 micro-level features of EEG signals.
The authors claim that this method gives a more insight into the health of the brain. Conventional measures of sleep have never demonstrated significant relationships with dementia risks presumably due to the fact that they lack the complexity of the way the brain operates in sleep.
Yue Leng, the senior author, has indicated that sleep is a process that is extremely multidimensional in nature and broad indicators can fail to pick vital warning signs.
What the Brain Waves Reveal
Some of the brain-wave patterns that are associated with brain age are already known to play major roles in the cognitive process.
The slow rolling waves observed in the deep sleep (Delta waves) are linked to recovery and restoration. The spindles of sleep which are short periods of heightened activity are assumed to aid memory consolidation.
Among other discoveries was the contribution of sharp spikes in brain activity which is referred to as kurtosis. These have been associated with reduced susceptibility to dementia and it can be concluded that some types of neural variability during sleep can be protective.
Notably, the correlation between an older age of the brain and dementia remained constant despite the broad-based consideration of other factors such as education, smoking status, body weight, physical activity, and the presence of other predisposing health conditions as well as genetic risk.
Toward Earlier Detection
Since EEG-based sleep monitoring is non-invasive researchers indicate that someday the results of the study can be applied to practical applications to screen early in life – possibly even outside the clinical environment using wearable devices.
The concept is simple sleep may provide a quantifiable, real-time measurement of brain aging.
An implication of the study is the broader implication, as well, which is that the enhancement of the sleep health can impact the aging of the brain. Past studies have revealed that therapeutic intervention of sleep disorders can have significant effects on the pattern of brain-wave.
Researchers, however, warn that this should not be seen as a problem-solving way. Change in lifestyle such as healthy weight and physical exercise especially in preventing a condition like sleep apnea may assist but there is no specific one-fit-all-purpose intervention that can reverse brain aging.
According to one of the authors of the study, there is no magic pill to the health of the brain yet, well, in any case.
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