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Decreased deep sleep and Alzheimer’s disease
Why is it in news?
- According to Washington University School of Medicine, Older people who get less deep sleep have higher levels of the brain protein tau, a sign of cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease.
- Slow-wave sleep is the deep sleep people need to consolidate memories and wake up feeling refreshed.
More in news
- Poor-quality sleep in later life could be a red flag for deteriorating brain health.
- There is inverse relationship between decreased slow-wave sleep and more tau protein in people who were either cognitively normal or very mildly impaired.
- It means that reduced slow-wave activity may be a marker for the transition between normal and impaired.
Tau proteins
- Function: To stabilize microtubules.
- Diseases associated with tau proteins: Pathologies and dementias of the nervous system such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease are associated with tau proteins that have become defective and no longer stabilize microtubules properly.
- Categorization: They have been characterized as intrinsically disordered proteins.
- Where they found?
- These proteins are found mostly in neurons compared to non-neuronal cells.
- They are abundant in neurons of the central nervous system.
Source
The Hindu