Tag Archives: sleep disorder

Is your brain aging faster than you are? What holds the key

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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.

Sleep/en.wikipedia.org

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.

 

Also Read:

A scientific recipe that helps babies stop crying, calm down and sleep in bed

Insufficient sleep in teenagers leads to obesity: Study

 

Deny teenagers any screen, they’ll soon go to sleep: Study

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Sleep in teenagers can be improved by just one week of limiting their evening exposure to light-emitting screens on phones, tablets and computers, said a study whose findings will be presented in Lyon, at the European Society of Endocrinology annual meeting, ECE 2019.

The study indicates that by simply limiting their exposure to blue-light emitting devices in the evening, adolescents can improve their sleep quality and reduce symptoms of fatigue, lack of concentration and bad mood, after just one week.

Recent studies have indicated that exposure to too much evening light, particularly the blue light emitted from screens on smartphones, tablets and computers can affect the brain’s clock and the production of the sleep hormone melatonin, resulting in disrupted sleep time and quality.

The lack of sleep doesn’t just cause immediate symptoms of tiredness and poor concentration but can also increase the risk of more serious long-term health issues such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Other studies have suggested that sleep deprivation related to screen time may affect children and adolescents more than adults, but no studies have fully investigated how real-life exposure is affecting sleep in adolescents at home and whether it can be reversed.

In this collaborative study between the Netherlands Institute of Neuroscience, the Amsterdam UMC and the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, researchers investigated the effects of blue light exposure on adolescents at home. Those who had more than 4 hours per day of screen time had on average 30 minutes later sleep onset and wake up times than those who recorded less than 1 hour per day of screen time, as well as more symptoms of sleep loss.

The team conducted a randomised controlled trial to assess the effects of blocking blue light with glasses and no screen time during the evening on the sleep pattern of 25 frequent users. Both blocking blue light with glasses and screen abstinence resulted in sleep onset and wake up times occurring 20 minutes earlier, and a reduction in reported symptoms of sleep loss in participants, after just one week.

Dr Dirk Jan Stenvers from the department of Endocrinology and Metabolism of the Amsterdam UMC says, “Adolescents increasingly spend more time on devices with screens and sleep complaints are frequent in this age group. Here we show very simply that these sleep complaints can be easily reversed by minimising evening screen use or exposure to blue light. Based on our data, it is likely that adolescent sleep complaints and delayed sleep onset are at least partly mediated by blue light from screens”

Dr Stenvers and his colleagues are now interested in whether the relationship between reduced screen time and improved sleep has longer lasting effects, and whether the same effects can be detected in adults.

Dr Stenvers comments, “Sleep disturbances start with minor symptoms of tiredness and poor concentration but in the long-term we know that sleep loss is associated with increased risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. If we can introduce simple measures now to tackle this issue, we can avoid greater health problems in years to come.”