Extended NAP of the day belong to the first signs of Alzheimer’s disease. Previously, it was not sure what the problem is. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have now found evidence that of the disease regions of the brain are attacked, the keep us awake during the day.

In the case of investigation of brain tissue of 13 patients with Alzheimer’s disease and seven healthy control subjects, the Team found three wakefulness-promoting brain centers characteristic accumulations of Tau Protein, which are known to promote Alzheimer’s. The complex System had lost 71 percent of the nerve cells that produce a chemical called Orexin, which provides for alertness – the researchers found little Orexin in the brains of patients. For comparison: In the case of narcolepsy, a disorder in which people sleep, attacks of suffering, are reduced to these neurons by 85 to 95 percent.

From the very first stage of the disease to the brain would reduce regions, the wakefulness promoting,. "Our work shows, that due to the accumulation of Tau passiert", Lea Grinberg, a neurologist and pathologist at the UCSF said. Main author Jun Oh added: "It is noteworthy that not only a single area degenerates, but the entire network that promotes wakefulness. The brain has no way to compensate for this, since all of them are destroyed, these functionally related cell types at the same time."

In the course of Alzheimer’s disease, sleep disorders can occur very much sooner than memory problems. The results support the theory that sleep disorders as a Symptom and not as a risk factor are to be assessed. The work published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia.

ZOU