Biomarker of Alzheimer's Found To Be Regulated By Sleep Cycles (newatlas.com) 23
Following a 2018 study demonstrating how disrupted sleep can accelerate the buildup of toxic plaques associated with the disease, scientists from Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) in St. Louis have now identified a protein implicated in the progression of the disease that appears highly regulated by the circadian rhythm, helping them join the dots and providing a potential new therapeutic target. New Atlas reports: In their previous research, the WUSM team set out to explore how disruptions to our natural sleep cycles, or circadian rhythm, may accelerate the accumulation of amyloid plaques in the brain, which are strongly linked to Alzheimer's disease. Through studies on humans and in mice, the team was able to show a strong correlation between the two, and now through follow up work, the team has identified a brain protein that appears to play a role in this relationship. The brain protein in question is called YKL-40 and for years has served as a biomarker for Alzheimer's, as high levels of it have been found in the cerebrospinal fluid of those suffering from the disease and these levels rise as the disease progresses. The researchers were screening for genes that are regulated by the circadian rhythm, and were intrigued to see the gene for this brain protein pop up.
From there, the team investigated this connection between YKL-40 and Alzheimer's, which is characterized by chronic inflammation, by exploring how much of the protein is made under inflammatory conditions both with and without a key circadian gene. Indeed, this demonstrated that the circadian rhythm controls how much YKL-40 is produced. Next up, the team worked with mice prone to developing amyloid plaques, and genetically modified one group of them to be lacking the gene for YKL-40. As the mice reached old age, the team analyzed their brains and found that those without the YKL-40 protein exhibited around half the amyloid plaques of the control group.
Digging deeper into the reasons why, the team found that the mice lacking the YKL-40 gene featured more microglia, which are immune cells that surround amyloid plaques and prevent them from spreading. Essentially, this meant that those mice had more hungry immune cells prepared to gobble up the amyloid. [...] The team also examined this idea in human subjects, drawing on genetic data on 778 subjects from aging and dementia studies and finding only a quarter of them featured a genetic variant that lowers levels of YKL-40, and that cognitive function declined 16 percent more slowly in that group. The research was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
From there, the team investigated this connection between YKL-40 and Alzheimer's, which is characterized by chronic inflammation, by exploring how much of the protein is made under inflammatory conditions both with and without a key circadian gene. Indeed, this demonstrated that the circadian rhythm controls how much YKL-40 is produced. Next up, the team worked with mice prone to developing amyloid plaques, and genetically modified one group of them to be lacking the gene for YKL-40. As the mice reached old age, the team analyzed their brains and found that those without the YKL-40 protein exhibited around half the amyloid plaques of the control group.
Digging deeper into the reasons why, the team found that the mice lacking the YKL-40 gene featured more microglia, which are immune cells that surround amyloid plaques and prevent them from spreading. Essentially, this meant that those mice had more hungry immune cells prepared to gobble up the amyloid. [...] The team also examined this idea in human subjects, drawing on genetic data on 778 subjects from aging and dementia studies and finding only a quarter of them featured a genetic variant that lowers levels of YKL-40, and that cognitive function declined 16 percent more slowly in that group. The research was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Great (Score:5, Funny)
Now I'm going to be up all night more and more worried about this.
Re:Great (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Great (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It's ok if you're up all night, since it's only disrupted circadian rhythms that cause the effect. I want to know what they do to wake mice in the middle of the night.
Give them lots of water so they have to get up to pee a lot.
Re: (Score:3)
Bring a cat over.
First post (Score:4, Funny)
Forgot about reading the comments already? (Score:2)
And thinking you got the first port?
First post! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: First post! (Score:1)
You're aware that having two attempts at first post is a little silly, right?
Re: First post! (Score:5, Funny)
He forgot that he posted the first one and
you know
nevermind.
Re: (Score:3)
Consider the subject of the article
Now consider the posters username
Reminds me (Score:4, Insightful)
Which of course ignores that a lot of unhealthy adults spend a lot more time sitting down, especially as they get older.
So now we have disrupted sleep cycles. Older people tend to have less regulated sleep cycles, being more wakeful, or having to get up to urinate at night. And these people are even claiming that daytime naps are a problem - which I must be dead by now, since I've power napped since my teens. But aside from that, a lot of older people, especially men, do nap during the day.
Anyhow, I hate to bring out the hated correlation isn't causation meme, but I think it fits. People who end up getting Alzheimers may be showing early symptoms of disrupted sleep long before they get the full blown disease.
As a chronic insomniac (Score:2)
I am fucked...
Re: (Score:2)
As someone who's circadian rhythm cycles between 20 minutes and 5 days, I feel you bro.
Re: (Score:2)
"I am fucked..."
There's a silver lining, you won't know.
Shift Work (Score:5, Insightful)
If so, seems like we need to come up with another solution to stop shift work. I heard from another study a while back that they also correlated higher incidence of cancer with shift work too.
A few problems (Score:2)
The major one is that while amyloid plaques are definitely linked with Alzheimer's, the causal connection hasn't been established, and it might well be that Alzheimer's causes the plaques. So far all (a huge number) of attempts to address things by getting rid of the plaques haven't had any useful result.
A secondary problem is that "mouse Alzheimer's" is not the same disease as human Alzheimer's. We can actually cure mouse Alzheimer's (depending on what it done to cause it to appear). The same cures don'
Fix (Score:2)
I found a fix for this:
Fix your Cicada Rhythms [youtube.com]
Abusive behaviour (Score:2)
I wonder how much of this is a result of being exposed to the toxic behaviors of personality disordered people.