
Wake-up call: How a lack of sleep can cause Alzheimer’s - bcaulfield
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23631470-600-wake-up-call-how-a-lack-of-sleep-can-cause-alzheimers/
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hortonew
So if Alzheimer's is the degeneration of brain cells leading to memory loss
and breakdown of other mental functions, and sleep is typically touted as a
way to consolidate memories, does sleep aid in the process of
repairing/healing cells in the brain? Does the lack of consolidation of memory
(lack of sleep) lead to some kind of disjointed collection of neurons, leading
to a condition such as Alzheimer's?

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throwanem
Seems so; see e.g.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26594659](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26594659).

tl;dr, from this source and related others: The vertebrate CNS has its own
waste clearance system, called the "glymphatic system", which serves a similar
function as the lymphatic system does for the rest of the organism. During
slow-wave sleep, neurons contract to increase the volume of extracellular
space, which aids the glymphatic system in clearing toxins such as the
β-amyloids which recent research strongly implicates as a risk factor for
Alzheimer's. It is therefore reasonable to suspect that restriction of slow-
wave sleep, such that this clearance cannot occur or can't run to completion,
itself poses a risk of Alzheimer's, and perhaps other disorders, later in
life.

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zschuessler
Not able to read without paying, unfortunately!

What I was able to read and the title itself has always interested me, as
someone who drinks a lot of coffee to get through the day efficiently. I can
easily correlate coffee intake with quality of sleep, and it does worry me.

So far I've felt OK about sacrificing weekday sleep quality by making up deep
sleep on the weekends. Not sure if the article talks about this or not, but it
helps me.. "sleep at night" so to speak :-)

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coldcode
I wish people wouldn't link to articles that have paywalls, most people here
are not going to pay just to read, Maybe someday there will be a universal
penny per read system that doesn't suck, then it will be fine.

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SyneRyder
Just on the point about the universal penny per read system, Google
Contributor seems to be trying again. They've got a beta program running in
Australia, with one of our newspapers and Business Insider (plus a handful of
others). For website owners there's details here:

[https://support.google.com/contributor/answer/7410105](https://support.google.com/contributor/answer/7410105)

