"Sleep, Memory, and Dementia" Ina Djonlagic (03/09/2022)
March 15, 2022Information
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- 7541
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- 00:00Alright, I think we are.
- 00:04Being recorded, folks are joining.
- 00:09As in good spirits of prior to
- 00:12zoom conferences, I see people
- 00:14having lunch, which is wonderful.
- 00:18That's great.
- 00:21Let's see, I am on my phone, Eric,
- 00:23so I can't tell how many people have joined.
- 00:25We're up to 40.
- 00:27Looks like alright, perfect, great,
- 00:31and so good afternoon everyone.
- 00:34My name is Andres in truck and I
- 00:37just wanted to welcome everyone back
- 00:39to another edition of the joint
- 00:44Northeastern I should call it sleep
- 00:47conferences now that includes several
- 00:51different academic programs and we're
- 00:54really excited to have you back.
- 00:56And joining us today and we have
- 00:59a very special speaker with us
- 01:01today that Eric will introduce.
- 01:03And just to remind you that
- 01:06during conference,
- 01:06please keep your mikes muted and post your
- 01:11questions into the chat and we will have.
- 01:16Our panel answer questions and Eric
- 01:19will guide that at the end of the talk.
- 01:23If you wanted to receive CME
- 01:25for today's activity, you can.
- 01:27You just have to be registered with the
- 01:29LC ME and the code to put into the CME.
- 01:38App is going to be posted in the
- 01:41chat as well by Debbie Lovejoy,
- 01:43and so thank you all again for joining us.
- 01:45I'm going to hand it over
- 01:47to Eric to introduce him.
- 01:50Wonderful good afternoon.
- 01:51Everyone had the pleasure of introducing,
- 01:53you know dialogic today who.
- 01:57It did her medical training at
- 01:59Georg August University in Germany
- 02:01and something I did not realize
- 02:03is that she actually did pediatric
- 02:05training first at Carl Gustav Carus
- 02:08University in Dresden before coming
- 02:10to the US and pursuing neurology
- 02:12training being both a resident chief
- 02:14resident at Dartmouth Hitchcock and
- 02:16then undergoing Sleep Medicine,
- 02:18clinical training at Brigham and Women's.
- 02:21And since then,
- 02:22she's maintained an active clinical practice,
- 02:25first at Brigham and Women's Hospital,
- 02:27and more recently at Beth
- 02:28Israel Deaconess Medical Center,
- 02:30where she's risen to the to be assistant
- 02:33professor in neurology at Harvard
- 02:35Medical School and has had active
- 02:38involvement Precepting Fleet Fellows,
- 02:40which is greatly appreciated
- 02:42for both fellowships.
- 02:43She's also had leadership roles,
- 02:45including being a medical director
- 02:47during her time at the clinic
- 02:49at the at at Brigham Women.
- 02:51And she is a ad hoc reviewer for many
- 02:55different journals and has also had a
- 02:59series of funded research projects early on.
- 03:03Having a relationship with
- 03:06Roberts trickled in his lab and.
- 03:10And having many projects in
- 03:11the areas of sleep learning,
- 03:13memory consolidation,
- 03:14EG analysis and cognitive decline,
- 03:17including its relationships with
- 03:19Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's
- 03:21and that's generated over 20
- 03:22publications and makes her very
- 03:24well qualified to speak on the topic
- 03:27that she's joining us for today for.
- 03:29So thank you very much for taking the time.
- 03:32Thanks, Eric. Thanks for having me.
- 03:35So I'm going to dive right in second.
- 03:40OK. So I. I like to start with a
- 03:46little bit of a historic background.
- 03:49There was a book that actually put together
- 03:54many famous people and how much they
- 03:58presumably step because there is still
- 04:01this notion that if you're a genius,
- 04:03whether you're a writer, painter,
- 04:06composer, you can live on very little
- 04:09sleep and that really disproved that.
- 04:12So it shows that most famous.
- 04:15And productive and prolific people
- 04:17in the past have actually slept more
- 04:19than we thought they did or got a good
- 04:22eight hours of sleep or even more.
- 04:27This one. So the first publication
- 04:34on sleep and Memory was actually
- 04:38from Jenkins and Dallenbach in 1924.
- 04:41There was a person that had previously looked
- 04:46at nonsense syllables and they had taken it.
- 04:50They were taking it a little bit further.
- 04:53What is interesting is.
- 04:56That this was done 100 years ago,
- 04:58and at that time it was enough to use
- 05:01just two students in each group, and so
- 05:04they had them learn nonsense syllables.
- 05:07And they had two students who were sleeping,
- 05:13and who students who stayed awake
- 05:15over this interval of eight hours.
- 05:18And as you can see in the graph here,
- 05:23the students who slept,
- 05:25they were able to retain these syllables
- 05:28a lot better than those who stayed awake.
- 05:32And uhm. Then not much happened, Uhm?
- 05:38Not meant that there wasn't
- 05:40much research for many decades,
- 05:42and I think that.
- 05:46There were a couple of obstacles that
- 05:49prevented people from really believing
- 05:52that sleep was meaningful in in cognition,
- 05:56and one reason is listed on the left.
- 06:00If you look at how many hours of
- 06:03sleep different species require,
- 06:05you can see humans down here at #3.
- 06:09Only below are the cow in the wars
- 06:11here and many other animals are above,
- 06:13and so there's no clear correlation between.
- 06:16Among animals or mammals,
- 06:18how much sleep they are getting
- 06:20and their cognitive ability.
- 06:23Similarly.
- 06:26This is a publication from Jerry
- 06:28Siegel assigns publication,
- 06:30who showed the amount of REM sleep and
- 06:34relation to humans and on the left side you
- 06:37can see animals that have a lot of REM sleep,
- 06:41which includes the platypus not considered
- 06:44the smartest animal on the right,
- 06:46you see a dolphins having
- 06:49very little REM sleep,
- 06:51and so there was this notion that
- 06:53it doesn't really make sense.
- 06:55There's no correlation about.
- 06:56You know if if REM sleep or
- 06:58sleep was that important,
- 06:59it would really correlate with you
- 07:01know humans should have the most
- 07:03and so that really took a break
- 07:05on a lot of research and I think
- 07:08eventually we started to understand
- 07:10a lot more about the way memories
- 07:14function and I'm just going.
- 07:16I should have said that at the beginning,
- 07:18I'm assuming that we're all that
- 07:20the audience has very different
- 07:22backgrounds in terms of neurology
- 07:25and condition and memories.
- 07:26So I'm I'm.
- 07:29Trying to be very very basic and and
- 07:32trying to give an overview so that
- 07:36hopefully everybody can understand.
- 07:402nd So this is. Altered a little bit,
- 07:46but this is from a publication from 1968
- 07:50and that's still more or less how we
- 07:53look at other different memory systems.
- 07:55So you start at the left.
- 07:58You have a sensory input and that can be,
- 08:00for example learning a
- 08:03skill or reading something,
- 08:05and if you're not paying attention,
- 08:07that information is immediately lost.
- 08:10If you pay attention,
- 08:12and if it's important to you,
- 08:13it gets initially.
- 08:15Put into short term memory storage and
- 08:18again if it's not rehearsed or it it gets.
- 08:23Also it's in a label state.
- 08:25It has to be encoded and consolidated
- 08:28to then move into the long term
- 08:32memory storage which.
- 08:35Can also be lost overtime,
- 08:36but it's much more stable
- 08:38and much more permanent.
- 08:44When we look at the different types
- 08:47of memories that we can study,
- 08:49we typically divide the long term memory in
- 08:53non declarative and declarative memories.
- 08:57So non declarative memories are the memories
- 09:00of procedural memories riding a bike,
- 09:02motor skills and motional memories.
- 09:05Declarative memories are subdivided into
- 09:07episodic and semantic memories, so those
- 09:10are the memories for facts and events.
- 09:13So what did I have for dinner last night?
- 09:16What is the capital of Paris?
- 09:18Those are all declarative memories,
- 09:21so we subgroup them. And.
- 09:25When we think about what is happening across
- 09:31with sleep dependent memory consolidation,
- 09:35we. Have initially he is an
- 09:38example of the memory game on.
- 09:41Yeah, I think you call it concentration
- 09:44so the person is encoding and learning
- 09:47where the cards are and during
- 09:50that time the memory is temporarily
- 09:52stored in the hippocampus and then
- 09:55there is a consolidation process
- 09:58during which the memory is changed.
- 10:01There is, you know,
- 10:04synaptic downscaling there.
- 10:06Is the memory is moved into more
- 10:09the cortex in different areas and
- 10:12it becomes a more permanent trace
- 10:15and then there is the retrieval
- 10:17process which is our ability to
- 10:20have access to the stored memory.
- 10:25And we think that the
- 10:27consolidation process can take
- 10:29place during wakefulness.
- 10:31But sleep is especially
- 10:33important for this process.
- 10:37And so a lot of the stuff these that I'm
- 10:40going to start talking about are using.
- 10:45Two time points to test people.
- 10:47That's very important.
- 10:48We usually have a session either in
- 10:50the evening and then in the morning
- 10:51or in the morning and the evening.
- 10:53But the the key is really to have
- 10:57two sessions where one is usually
- 10:59learning and the other one is.
- 11:01Recall to see what happens
- 11:03in in between those times.
- 11:07So I'm gonna talk 1st about
- 11:10non declarative memory.
- 11:12So again learning
- 11:14instrument tying your shoes.
- 11:16For that type of learning,
- 11:19one test that has become very
- 11:22established is the motor Skill,
- 11:25learning task or finger tapping tasks.
- 11:28With this test,
- 11:30people have to type a sequence,
- 11:33usually 5 digit number with
- 11:35their left non dominant hand.
- 11:37The sequence is displayed on the
- 11:39computer at all times you do the typing.
- 11:41In 32nd trials you rest and
- 11:44you do this 12 times.
- 11:46So you have 12 trials.
- 11:49And. Up 20 years ago.
- 11:55Matt Walker, Bob Stickgold published
- 11:57this paper in Neuron where they
- 12:00proof that this type of memory really
- 12:03improves with a night of sleep.
- 12:05So on the left. A person trained
- 12:09first on the finger tapping test.
- 12:11In the morning they come back 12
- 12:14hours later in the evening and you
- 12:17can see here a little bit improvement,
- 12:19but not significant.
- 12:20Then they go to sleep and in the morning
- 12:23they show the significant improvement.
- 12:26There could have been a question
- 12:28about the sequence of things,
- 12:29so they also had a group that trained
- 12:33in the evening and then you see the
- 12:36significant improvement in the morning
- 12:38and then they do the test again that
- 12:41after 12 hours and not much changes.
- 12:44So it's really sleep that
- 12:46provides the benefit.
- 12:48They also found a correlation between
- 12:50overnight improvement and stage two sleep,
- 12:52and now we know in follow-up studies
- 12:55that it's actually the spindles.
- 12:56Trying to take the stage to sleep
- 12:59that are particularly important
- 13:01in in improving this memory.
- 13:04So, uhm.
- 13:05What I did then is I wanted to see
- 13:11if N2 seat is that important.
- 13:12What happens when we look at patients
- 13:17with obstructive sleep apnea?
- 13:19And so we trained healthy controls
- 13:23and OSA people on the MSD on the
- 13:28motorcycle test in the evening and
- 13:30then tested them again in the morning.
- 13:32And you can see very nicely here that
- 13:35the OSA patients really improved by
- 13:39half of what the healthy controls improved.
- 13:42And then we looked further into.
- 13:47Correlations these were actually
- 13:49fairly young participants,
- 13:51so they were on average in their 40s.
- 13:54They had fairly mild sleep apnea
- 13:57and what we found was a correlation
- 13:59between the apnea hypoxemia index,
- 14:01the oxygen, and the arousal,
- 14:04and if you put everything in a model,
- 14:07it's really the arousal,
- 14:08so the the sleep fragmentation that
- 14:11seems to be the most detrimental to
- 14:14this type of memory consolidation.
- 14:16Because our participants were very young,
- 14:19the next question was what happens if
- 14:22we look at older people or at aging,
- 14:25does this?
- 14:27Have any impact also on on memory,
- 14:30consolidation and.
- 14:35We took a group with a wide age range and.
- 14:41The top you see patients who don't have
- 14:44OSA in blue at the bottom are patients
- 14:48with I'm sorry participants with
- 14:50healthy participants at the bottom are
- 14:53patients with OSA and what we showed
- 14:56is that if you don't have OSA and you
- 14:59can get old and still preserve your
- 15:03ability to consolidate moder memories,
- 15:06if you have our say first of all
- 15:10you perform at. Much lower level,
- 15:13you have far less overnight improvement,
- 15:16but on top of that.
- 15:18As you get older, your skills also decline.
- 15:23So sleep apnea offers a much
- 15:25stronger age effect on on this type
- 15:29of memory consolidation.
- 15:35The next question if was.
- 15:39If non REM sleep is really that important
- 15:42for this type of memory consolidation,
- 15:46what happens if we look at patients
- 15:49with who only have OSA during REM sleep?
- 15:52Because REM sleep doesn't seem to
- 15:55be important and so here we took
- 16:00participants with healthy controls
- 16:02that have displayed in blue.
- 16:05We had REM only OSA patients, so these are.
- 16:09Participants who had normal hi
- 16:11during non REM sleep so it was below
- 16:145 and then we had a group that had
- 16:17OSA during then REM sleep and non
- 16:20REM sleep and on the left.
- 16:22This is a different display
- 16:23of the motorcycle test.
- 16:25You can see the individual training
- 16:27sessions here at this place so
- 16:29there are 12 training sessions
- 16:31in the evening participants.
- 16:32There's a little bit of a difference
- 16:35but it's actually not significant
- 16:37so more or less they perform.
- 16:39When they learn the tests in
- 16:41the same way and then the next
- 16:43morning when they get retested,
- 16:45you can see very nicely that
- 16:47the people who have non REM,
- 16:49R.E.M., OSA don't show any.
- 16:52Don't show much improvement versus
- 16:55the REM OSA patients and the
- 16:59controls that perform absolutely
- 17:02identical so fragmented REM sleep
- 17:04doesn't seem to affect this type
- 17:07of RAM memory consolidation.
- 17:10There was another so you can
- 17:13using REM related apnea is a very
- 17:16elegant way to fragment REM sleep.
- 17:18You can also use pharmacotherapy
- 17:22and young born from Germany.
- 17:26Has published a paper a few years
- 17:29ago where they gave participants
- 17:31REM suppressing medication so they
- 17:34gave them an SSRI and SNRI that
- 17:38those fluvoxamine and reboxetine
- 17:41and at the top you can see how
- 17:45the participant had far less REM
- 17:48sleep with these medication.
- 17:49And interestingly when they had
- 17:52them perform the same test.
- 17:54The motor skill learning tests
- 17:56and also in mirror drawing test.
- 17:58Which is another procedural test,
- 18:00and they found that participant
- 18:03actually performed better than those
- 18:05that didn't receive the medication.
- 18:07And even though this was published
- 18:09in Nature Neuroscience,
- 18:10they don't provide a lot of explanation.
- 18:15All they say is, well,
- 18:17REM sleep can't be important
- 18:19then for this type of memory.
- 18:21But this really also emphasizes that
- 18:25the different sleep stages are truly.
- 18:28Important for different types of memories.
- 18:34I'd like to move to a emotional memories now,
- 18:38which, UM, as as we all know,
- 18:41hold it dear spot in all our memories on the
- 18:44left I usually show because I'm from Germany,
- 18:46the fall of the the wall,
- 18:48which is about 33 years ago and I have
- 18:52to say that at that time things looked a
- 18:55lot more bright than they do now, but.
- 18:59For to test emotional memory.
- 19:03We use something called an
- 19:05emotional tradeoff test,
- 19:07which was developed by Elizabeth Kensinger,
- 19:09who's now at Boston College.
- 19:13And in this task you have objects
- 19:17and backgrounds you have on the left.
- 19:19You have an example of neutral backgrounds.
- 19:25And a neutral object.
- 19:26And here is a neutral background and emotion.
- 19:30Negative emotional background object
- 19:33and the task pass the neutral objects
- 19:38with with the neutral backgrounds with
- 19:41either neutral objects or emotional
- 19:44objects and initially participants
- 19:46just have to take a look at these
- 19:49pictures and and try and study them
- 19:52and then when they get retested.
- 19:54They only see the object or the background
- 19:57in isolation and they are asked,
- 20:00but they are also at the recall test.
- 20:03They're being shown similar items
- 20:06and completely new items,
- 20:08and they are asked if specifically is
- 20:11this the same that you saw before?
- 20:14Is it similar or is it a new item and?
- 20:19Jessica Payne,
- 20:21who worked in bucked Stickels group,
- 20:24looked at this task with healthy
- 20:27college students.
- 20:28And we can first look on the right
- 20:31side on the neutral scenes.
- 20:33People were tested repeatedly
- 20:36and over the course of time.
- 20:39The combination of neutral objects
- 20:41and neutral backgrounds doesn't
- 20:44really change that much,
- 20:45so there's no big disk discrepancy
- 20:49when you look on the left,
- 20:51the first thing you can notice is that the
- 20:55negative scenes are remembered a lot better,
- 20:58and what happens though.
- 21:01When people sleep,
- 21:03is that they appear to remember
- 21:05after a night of sleep,
- 21:07they appear to remember the negative objects
- 21:10lot better at the cost of the objects,
- 21:13so they really filter out that
- 21:16negative memory at the expense of
- 21:20the of the object or the background.
- 21:23And so,
- 21:25that's that's what we call
- 21:27the emotional tradeoff,
- 21:28which is facilitated by by sleep,
- 21:31and I'm sorry.
- 21:37So we felt that it was important to look
- 21:40also at OSA patients because there's
- 21:43a lot of depression, anxiety and.
- 21:48Psychopathology in these patients.
- 21:51And we used the Group of healthy
- 21:54controls and patients with OSA.
- 21:58And we gave them the emotional tradeoff
- 22:01test and the question was, are they
- 22:04showing the same emotional trade off?
- 22:06And how are they remembering
- 22:08these these objects?
- 22:10And what we found was that across
- 22:13the board OSA patients remember less.
- 22:16They remember less objects,
- 22:18they remember less.
- 22:20Background, it doesn't matter.
- 22:23Neutral objects,
- 22:24emotional objects,
- 22:25the the memory is just not as
- 22:28good as in healthy participants.
- 22:30What they still preserved was the ability to.
- 22:35Half the emotional trade off,
- 22:37so that doesn't seem to be affected
- 22:39and that just shows that even though
- 22:43these people have less REM sleep,
- 22:46which is often correlates with poorer
- 22:49memory consolidation on this task,
- 22:51they still preserve this ability.
- 22:57So next I want to move to the effect
- 23:01of treatment on memory recovery.
- 23:04So there is. There's short term
- 23:09CPAP effect and the reason I wanted
- 23:12to look at that is because a lot
- 23:15of patients say the first night of
- 23:18CPAP is can be very life altering,
- 23:22can have a big impact and I wanted
- 23:25to see if it would also resolve
- 23:28some of these memory deficits.
- 23:31And so here we had three groups,
- 23:35one group that was a healthy
- 23:39control Group One group with.
- 23:41Sleep apnea, OSA and one group
- 23:43that received the first night of
- 23:45C Pap in their life so they work.
- 23:47Pap. Naive.
- 23:48They were just diagnosed with OSA and
- 23:51you can see that the see PAP group
- 23:53and Control group have very similar.
- 23:56Hi, they were not significantly different.
- 24:01Also, sleep stages didn't
- 24:03show significant differences,
- 24:05so overall they sleep looked very
- 24:08similar as opposed to the OSA group,
- 24:10which as expected had a hi hi, lower nedeia.
- 24:16And here you can see how
- 24:19these groups performed during
- 24:21evening training on the left.
- 24:24In blue you have the group before
- 24:28they get CPAP, so they actually
- 24:30performed a little bit worse,
- 24:32but it wasn't significant.
- 24:33Here's the group, the OSA Group,
- 24:36which remains without treatment.
- 24:38And then you have controls.
- 24:41The next morning,
- 24:42the controls outperform
- 24:44everybody and then the.
- 24:49At morning retest the see PAP group that
- 24:53supposedly slept better is actually down
- 24:56here and the OSA group is in the middle.
- 24:59We then also just to see if it has to do
- 25:03with. Sometimes recall has to do with.
- 25:07Sleep inertia, sleepiness, or attention.
- 25:11We often have them learn a new
- 25:13sequence to see how they perform in
- 25:15general in the morning, and here's
- 25:17how they all learn and look sequence,
- 25:19so that's very similar. So.
- 25:24Overall this no improvement after a
- 25:28first night of using CPAP despite
- 25:33changes in sleep architecture.
- 25:35What did change was the we also
- 25:39have them do the PDT.
- 25:41The second motor vigilance test.
- 25:44This is the change in reaction time from
- 25:47the evening session to the morning session.
- 25:49So the see PAP group here in blue.
- 25:51They were much faster in the morning,
- 25:53so much more attention vigilance always.
- 25:56A group was slower and control
- 25:59so more or less the same. Uhm?
- 26:03What was striking, though,
- 26:05was also that the group that received
- 26:09CPAP felt subjectively much more
- 26:12rested compared to the OSA group.
- 26:14So in summary, they feel more rested,
- 26:18they have better attention,
- 26:20but the sleep dependent memory consolidation
- 26:22really hasn't changed that quickly.
- 26:25And.
- 26:27As a follow up.
- 26:33I wanted to see what happens when
- 26:36participants of inpatients you
- 26:38cpap for longer periods of time.
- 26:40Is there recovery possible?
- 26:43So for this I actually used.
- 26:45I have to introduce a new test so
- 26:47I'm not using the MST anymore.
- 26:49I moved on to the declarative memory test.
- 26:53Which is a word pair task in which
- 26:58participants have to learn 40 related
- 27:00word pairs that are presented on
- 27:03a computer so they look at them.
- 27:05Then they have a recall test where
- 27:09they see the first word and they
- 27:11have to put in the second one and
- 27:13that list is presented repeatedly in
- 27:15a different order until they recall
- 27:18at least 24 word pairs correctly,
- 27:20and that's called the 60% criterion.
- 27:22The reason we do that is so that
- 27:26everybody achieves the same level.
- 27:29Uh-huh learns this the the test to the
- 27:33same level and then in the morning we
- 27:35give them a piece of paper with the
- 27:38first word and they have to put in
- 27:40the second word and that determines
- 27:43their recall across the night of sleep.
- 27:48So for this experiment,
- 27:52we enrolled our essay patients
- 27:56and healthy controls initially
- 27:59and part one was just to get a
- 28:02sense of how different are they
- 28:06consolidating this declarative memory.
- 28:08So that was part one of the overnight visit.
- 28:11Uhm? Then the also patients
- 28:17were randomized into a C PAP
- 28:19group and an oak PAP group.
- 28:24The see PAP Group received a device
- 28:28and auto titrating device both groups
- 28:31watched a presentation on healthy
- 28:34lifestyle changes and exercise.
- 28:37We had long debated whether we
- 28:40should use spam pub or sham CPAP.
- 28:43Or you know something else.
- 28:45But we decided that a lot of people
- 28:49change their behavior when they get
- 28:51a diagnosis of OSA and that's why we
- 28:53why we focus on lifestyle changes and.
- 28:58Patients were asked to use the see
- 29:00PAP for three months and during that
- 29:02time we checked their compliance.
- 29:04We worked with them.
- 29:06We also checked on their diet and
- 29:09exercise and both groups and then
- 29:11they came back after three months
- 29:13and they again went were tested with
- 29:15a new version of the declarative
- 29:17test of the learned new set of word
- 29:20pairs in the evening and then in
- 29:22the morning they have the recall
- 29:24test and we just published this.
- 29:28In the Blue journal.
- 29:31It showed that overall there
- 29:35was a nice recovery of the sleep
- 29:38dependent declarative memory
- 29:40deficits after three months of CPAP.
- 29:43So I'll walk you through these through
- 29:46these bars so and blue you see the
- 29:50baseline performance and you have the
- 29:53group here to the left that did not receive.
- 29:56That has OSA, but did not receive C PAP.
- 30:00You have the pop group.
- 30:01That's that baseline,
- 30:03and this is after three months of
- 30:07using C PAP and then on the right in
- 30:10you have the healthy control group
- 30:12and what is really uplifting to see is
- 30:16that the C Pap group really reached the
- 30:20same level as the healthy controls.
- 30:25I will say though,
- 30:26that because it was a small study,
- 30:28they received a lot of attention and
- 30:30they had really excellent compliance.
- 30:33So they were all between 5:00 and
- 30:34six hours of using their CPAP.
- 30:40And, uh. When we looked closer,
- 30:44what is determining the improvement
- 30:47it was actually the end 3 sleep the
- 30:50amount of N3 sleep that they were in,
- 30:54so that has been shown before
- 30:55but that was at the baseline.
- 30:58Comparing controls and OSA
- 31:00patients and then we were able to
- 31:04show that in the C PAP group the
- 31:07amount of ends we increase really
- 31:10determined also how much they were.
- 31:13Better able to remember the word pairs.
- 31:21And so I just want to stop for
- 31:24a moment and talk about the.
- 31:27The street light effect which is,
- 31:30I think part of the problem,
- 31:33why some of the larger studies that
- 31:37have looked at the effect of skypad
- 31:39like the Apple study for example,
- 31:41have had trouble seeing an effect.
- 31:45So the streetlight effect is where
- 31:48a person is under a street lamp
- 31:51and is looking for the wallet,
- 31:53and the policeman comes and says,
- 31:55is this where you lost your wallet?
- 31:57And the person says no,
- 31:58I lost a bullet in the park,
- 31:59but this is where the light is,
- 32:01and so we tend to gravitate to
- 32:04things that are familiar to us.
- 32:06And so initially,
- 32:07what a lot of studies were using were
- 32:11the traditional cognitive testing.
- 32:16That or neuro psych testing,
- 32:19which is really only studying
- 32:21participants at one time point.
- 32:25And also is using things like number back
- 32:30or which are relying more on attention?
- 32:34UM, so they are really if I
- 32:36hope you can see my cursor,
- 32:38they really just looking more
- 32:40into the short term memory.
- 32:42Of these participants,
- 32:43rather than the long term consolidation,
- 32:47which is where,
- 32:48wherever,
- 32:49whatever test on cognitive tests
- 32:52I used always say patients were
- 32:55impaired and showed impairment,
- 32:56and the reason if you only test them once
- 32:59I bring in this example from the REM group,
- 33:02when we trained people in the evening,
- 33:05we really didn't see a huge
- 33:07difference in their performance,
- 33:09so they were able to encode
- 33:11this new task just.
- 33:12Time,
- 33:13but in the you really mainly see
- 33:15the difference in in in performance
- 33:17when you have them come back and
- 33:19you test them a second time.
- 33:21That's really when you see the difference.
- 33:26So what a potential mechanisms very briefly?
- 33:32In animal studies this is from.
- 33:37Doctor Wilson at MIT.
- 33:38This is an older study now,
- 33:40but I think it's still very beautifully
- 33:43done when animals learn maze at the
- 33:48top here you can see firing in the
- 33:51temple area as they learn the maze
- 33:54to navigate the maze and when these
- 33:57animals go to sleep over striking
- 33:59is that you see the same firing
- 34:02patterns in the hippocampal area
- 34:04and that was a proof that there is.
- 34:07Reactivation of things that we learned
- 34:09during the day at night when we sleep.
- 34:12Now this is a lot harder to do in humans.
- 34:15But a study that came very close is again
- 34:18from Young Bones Group in in Germany,
- 34:20where they actually used smell to
- 34:24prove that memory gets reactivated.
- 34:26So I briefly want to go over this
- 34:29because it's really a beautiful study.
- 34:31So in here again is the the memory
- 34:35of concentration game is used and
- 34:38there are different experimental
- 34:40conditions that you can see here.
- 34:43So the first group.
- 34:44When they learn this memory test,
- 34:47they are exposed to a rose order.
- 34:51Then the order is.
- 34:54Again,
- 34:55they exposed to the same order at
- 34:57the beginning of the night when we
- 34:58presumably have more slow wave sleep,
- 35:00which is needed for this type of
- 35:03memory consolidation and retrieval.
- 35:04They have no order.
- 35:05There's another group that doesn't
- 35:08receive order in the learning condition,
- 35:10but at night when they sleep
- 35:13during slow wave sleep again order
- 35:15and the big when they train,
- 35:18and then later during the night when
- 35:21they have more REM sleep and then.
- 35:23They receive an order when they learn it,
- 35:25and then right before they go to bed
- 35:28because there might be also a time
- 35:30when we saw when before we go to bed
- 35:33that we people think maybe there's
- 35:36some consolidation taking place
- 35:38and then no odor during retrieval.
- 35:41And the main finding is here.
- 35:44On the left is that the people that
- 35:47receive order when they learn this
- 35:49task and during the early time of
- 35:52sleep when they have slow wave sleep.
- 35:54When we presumably consolidate
- 35:56this type of memory,
- 35:57they are performed a lot better
- 36:00than all the other groups as.
- 36:05It's only indirect,
- 36:06but it's probably as good as it gets
- 36:09in terms of showing that there is some
- 36:12reactivation taking place when we sleep.
- 36:17So now towards the last part I.
- 36:22Not one to cover the link
- 36:25between sleep and dementia,
- 36:26which has become a lot more popular.
- 36:33And. Uh. It's really one of the.
- 36:40In most interesting and I think
- 36:43also showing studies was done from
- 36:47Spirae where they looked at the
- 36:50association between self reported
- 36:52sleep and amyloid deposition,
- 36:55and this is fairly small.
- 36:57But on the left you have people
- 37:00who sleep more than 7 hours.
- 37:02Then you have people who sleep
- 37:04between 6:00 and seven hours,
- 37:06and then people who sleep less than
- 37:08six hours and more red means more
- 37:11amyloid and you can see very nicely
- 37:14is that people who sleep less tend
- 37:16to have more amyloid. And this is.
- 37:19But this is self reported sleep.
- 37:22So that was one
- 37:25really hot data proof that there is a
- 37:29direct correlation between the amount
- 37:31of sleep and and amyloid deposition.
- 37:34Then a little bit later,
- 37:36most of you might be familiar with her data.
- 37:40Need a God showed very nicely
- 37:44that when we go to sleep,
- 37:47there is a change in how.
- 37:52Come in the interstitial fluids and
- 37:57they showed in in animals that amyloid
- 38:00increase with the time of awake,
- 38:02and then decrease during sleep and
- 38:04that sleep really promotes the
- 38:07removal of amyloid from the brain,
- 38:10and the idea is that or the possibility
- 38:14is that maybe neurodegenerative disorders
- 38:16are the result of a MIS management
- 38:20of toxic molecules which accumulate.
- 38:22In the brain. This is still,
- 38:25you know, I have a hypothesis.
- 38:27I think some people think that
- 38:29this is the way it is.
- 38:30I think that.
- 38:33The challenge is that this shows
- 38:36things more amyloid leakage,
- 38:38and it's hard to say whether this
- 38:41truly means that we're those.
- 38:45Animals, and now we also have
- 38:48experiments with MRI by Laura Lewis.
- 38:52In humans, whether it really means that
- 38:56it leads to a long term accumulation of
- 39:00amyloid and truly a higher risk of dementia.
- 39:03So I think all of this is is very important
- 39:06and very interesting, but it's still.
- 39:09I think the link from this to long
- 39:13term accumulation of amyloid and the
- 39:16development of dementia is still,
- 39:18you know, it's a it's a hypothesis.
- 39:23The other important study is
- 39:26looking at this is from at walkers.
- 39:28Lab is showing that amilo
- 39:33amyloid accumulation.
- 39:35Is directly affecting memory consolidation,
- 39:41so here they had elderly people
- 39:43and they looked they localized
- 39:46amyloid which is very unusual in the
- 39:50temporal area and they showed that.
- 39:54This correlated with declarative
- 39:57memory consolidation.
- 39:58So when you had more amyloid,
- 39:59you didn't consolidate memories as well.
- 40:03They also went further and not only looked
- 40:06at sleep stages and slow wave in itself,
- 40:09but also at how slow wave
- 40:13sleep and spindles interact.
- 40:16As we look deeper into microstates of
- 40:19of sleep and beyond just sleep stages,
- 40:23we found that.
- 40:25In healthy people there is this nice.
- 40:28Synchrony between slow
- 40:29wave sleep and spindles,
- 40:31and if they are perfectly aligned,
- 40:32that seems to offer the best
- 40:36benefit for affective memory
- 40:38consolidation as people get older,
- 40:41that relationship shifts a little bit,
- 40:44just buy regular aging,
- 40:46and then presumably,
- 40:48if you have a neurocognitive
- 40:51disorder such as dementia,
- 40:53there's even further shift.
- 40:57So those are different
- 40:59mechanisms that seem to affect.
- 41:01Sleep and memory consolidation.
- 41:10So earlier studies that I've showed
- 41:14have mainly focused on amyloid
- 41:16because that was available to us and.
- 41:21A lot of people believe more that
- 41:24amyloid is really the most important.
- 41:27A protein that was the driver.
- 41:29I think there's a big shift that we
- 41:32now think that Tao and Larry tangles
- 41:36have received a lot more attention.
- 41:40What I want to make clear that
- 41:43everybody understands is that when
- 41:45we talk about clinical dementia,
- 41:47that's the time point that is fairly
- 41:49at the end of this trajectory.
- 41:52The process itself often starts
- 41:56decades before the clinical symptoms,
- 42:00and so there is a gradual increase
- 42:02in amyloid, but also Tau.
- 42:04We now think that Tau might actually be
- 42:07driving a lot more of of the changes.
- 42:10Tao is also much easier to localize,
- 42:14and there are different Brooks stages,
- 42:16and it has different dynamics, that's why.
- 42:22Uhm? Myself and Jasmine are at chat.
- 42:25Well, we have a grant together
- 42:29looking at Tao up in PET scans,
- 42:34which is something that became
- 42:35available over the last few years.
- 42:38And we were interested in looking at
- 42:42early Tau changes in older patients,
- 42:46and to correlate that with their
- 42:49sleep to see if there's any.
- 42:52If there's anything there.
- 42:54And So what we found is this is a
- 42:58fairly fresh data, unpublished.
- 43:02This is from participants of the
- 43:04habit aging brain study which is
- 43:07a longitudinal study looking at
- 43:09healthy aging and its control.
- 43:12People have regular repeated
- 43:15scans and cognitive testing,
- 43:17and we added a home sleep studies for PSG's.
- 43:20And what we've found is that
- 43:23in areas that are early on,
- 43:26affected in dementia,
- 43:27which is the enter rhinal
- 43:29and inferior temporal Tau,
- 43:31there is a correlation between increased
- 43:34Tau and the amount of slow wave sleep.
- 43:39And this.
- 43:42Is also 8. Remains even
- 43:45when you control for age,
- 43:47so that's very solid.
- 43:50It doesn't depend on the amyloid burden,
- 43:54so this is completely independent
- 43:57of how much amyloid a person has,
- 44:02so it's not an additional effect.
- 44:04So Tau seems to have its own
- 44:08mechanism on and effect on
- 44:11slow wave slow wave modulation.
- 44:19And finally, I also want to point out
- 44:22that we saw that less REM sleep was also
- 44:26associated with Greater Talbert and one
- 44:29of the points that I would like to make
- 44:32is that people often hyperfocus on slow
- 44:34wave sleep and and and delta waves,
- 44:36and if we can only restore delta waves,
- 44:39people will be cognitively intact.
- 44:42I don't think it's that simple.
- 44:43I think there's many studies that have now
- 44:46shown not just our results, but others.
- 44:49That REM sleep also seems to play an
- 44:52important role and seems to decrease in
- 44:55the setting of cognitive impairment.
- 45:01So in the end, it's really becoming
- 45:06a mix of factors that weight into.
- 45:12Sleep and cognition.
- 45:14And if we stop with sleep fragmentation from
- 45:18our say we saw that it changes cognition.
- 45:23Doesn't change, doesn't make a
- 45:25person more susceptible to dementia.
- 45:27That's very difficult to say.
- 45:30There are some studies that suggest that,
- 45:33but I think there are also a lot
- 45:36of people with severe OSA who
- 45:38not everybody becomes demented,
- 45:40so they're obviously other factors
- 45:43that play a role.
- 45:45The accumulation of amyloid and Tau in
- 45:48itself can cause further sleep fragmentation,
- 45:51and so it becomes suspicious cycle.
- 45:551. Last aspect that I want to talk
- 45:59about is as the AP Epsilon E4,
- 46:01which is a risk factor for as
- 46:03many of you know, for dementia.
- 46:05So if you have one allele,
- 46:07you have a higher risk if you have two
- 46:08alleles, you have even higher risk.
- 46:11Many studies have shown that if you have.
- 46:15If you're at a point you've
- 46:17carrier and for carrier,
- 46:18and you have OSA,
- 46:19you have much higher risk for
- 46:21having cognitive problems or have
- 46:24more pronounced cognitive problems.
- 46:26Well, this is also unpublished data,
- 46:29although I showed it at the last week
- 46:32meeting is that we look at young,
- 46:35healthy participants.
- 46:39They were tested with Wechsler
- 46:41tests so they were they had no
- 46:44subjective and objective cognitive.
- 46:46Problems we had a group of April E4
- 46:50carriers and a group of non carriers.
- 46:54We have them all to do the declarative
- 46:57memory test and the input for carriers
- 47:02also showed far less overnight memory
- 47:05consolidation compared to the healthy,
- 47:07healthy non carious.
- 47:09And the April 4 carriers actually
- 47:13show at the same level as the OSA
- 47:17patients and this just speaks again,
- 47:20unfortunately to the fact that.
- 47:24Cognitive decline people
- 47:26usually use the analogy of the
- 47:28iceberg starts very early on.
- 47:30It's very subtle, but that might
- 47:32actually be the very vulnerable
- 47:34time when we might be able to.
- 47:39Provide treatment for these
- 47:41people because a lot of times.
- 47:46Once clinical symptoms starts and
- 47:49we have seen it in the clinic,
- 47:52you cannot reverse dementia.
- 47:53You can improve some of the symptoms.
- 47:55Some of the attention if you have
- 47:58somebody with dementia who also has OSA.
- 48:01I might put temporarily be
- 48:03a little bit more alert,
- 48:06but you really can't reverse
- 48:08the the the trip trajectory,
- 48:10so it's probably a matter of timing and and
- 48:14the kind of treatment that we can provide,
- 48:17but there's definitely a strong correlation
- 48:20between sleep and and cognition and dementia,
- 48:23hopefully with better biomarkers.
- 48:25We can determine who is at higher risk
- 48:29and and then treatment to be determined.
- 48:32So ending with Christoph Niemann,
- 48:36who's a did, a list of goodnight and
- 48:40a list of drawings for The New Yorker.
- 48:44But goodnight and good luck getting a
- 48:47good night's sleep is actually a lot
- 48:49more complicated than what we think.
- 48:51Thank you.
- 48:59Doctor John logic.
- 49:00Thank you very much for reviewing
- 49:03that fascinating presentation.
- 49:06If folks can submit questions
- 49:08into the chat, we can help plan.
- 49:12Moderate this Aahe and
- 49:15Stuart men just posted one.
- 49:18Do patients with longstanding by
- 49:20history untreated OSA have higher
- 49:23beta amyloid levels in their brain?
- 49:27That's a question we don't I?
- 49:28I mean I would love.
- 49:31Uhm, that's that's $1,000,000 question.
- 49:33I think that there's no way to trace back
- 49:37when OSA started and and how severe it was.
- 49:41It's sort of a gradual process.
- 49:43I think there are.
- 49:46On on maybe some prospective studies
- 49:48that are starting to look at it,
- 49:50but I think for now we don't have an answer.
- 49:53I'm not necessarily sure that
- 49:57it's just a matter of time.
- 49:59I think there are other factors that it's,
- 50:02I think the person's ability to deal with
- 50:05OSA and itself that also plays a big role.
- 50:08The ability to generate slow
- 50:10wave sleep despite having OSA,
- 50:12you see that in some participants.
- 50:16We also,
- 50:17you know we have people in our group of hot.
- 50:20The habit aging brain study who in
- 50:23the 80s and 90s now and and they get
- 50:25their first sleep study in their life.
- 50:27They have no symptoms.
- 50:28They have no sleepiness.
- 50:29They are fine and I think it's and they
- 50:33probably had it for for a really long time.
- 50:35So I think it's I'm not sure if
- 50:38it's a it's a time effect as much
- 50:40as it's the cognitive reserve or
- 50:42the ability the way the brain
- 50:44deals with sleep deprivation.
- 50:46Skip fragmentation.
- 50:50Wonderful and a couple more popping up here.
- 50:52Doctor Gary is asked,
- 50:53do you think the lack of improvement
- 50:55in memory after one night of C PAP
- 50:58use was related to the potential sleep
- 51:00disruption from the first night of PAP use?
- 51:04Could it? That I could see Pap actually
- 51:07worse than some elements of sleep
- 51:09because patients were not yet
- 51:11customed to sleeping with the mask.
- 51:13But if it did, it wasn't.
- 51:15We didn't measure it,
- 51:17they didn't have a high arousal index.
- 51:19It is possible that there was some
- 51:21things that we didn't measure,
- 51:23but I think at least from the.
- 51:28Looking at, I actually did look
- 51:31at sleep spindles to come and
- 51:35they didn't seem to recover,
- 51:37so it could be that there my my
- 51:42more thinking that there are deep
- 51:45structural changes that don't recover
- 51:48overnight rather than that there was
- 51:51the CPAP or the treatment imposing.
- 51:56Fragmentation or or some some.
- 52:00Affecting the quality of sleep.
- 52:05Doctor Yagi asks do you think
- 52:07sleep effects are potentially
- 52:08limited to Alzheimer's dementia?
- 52:10Or could it be playing a role in
- 52:11other forms of dementia like Blue
- 52:13Lewy body or vascular dementia?
- 52:17I think it has the potential to play a
- 52:19role in in other dimensions as well.
- 52:22I mean, we know that many dimensions does
- 52:24also have from run behavior disorders.
- 52:26To sleep is definitely affected. And.
- 52:32The question is how much of it it how?
- 52:36Is it? Is it parallel other because
- 52:39sleep and memory use the same
- 52:42networks and so could it be part of
- 52:45the same decline of a network that?
- 52:48Changes sleep and memory in parallel or
- 52:50is are they interfering with each other?
- 52:53So that's I think the big question
- 52:55that is not really answered.
- 52:57We're hoping that with this study
- 52:59that we're doing right now where
- 53:01we actually follow participant
- 53:03longitudinally with their sleep,
- 53:05so they have consecutive sleep
- 53:07studies and imaging that we can see.
- 53:09Maybe what is driving what,
- 53:11but I think it's difficult to
- 53:13tell at this time.
- 53:16And Stuart man asks, can you further
- 53:19discuss the relationship of slow wave
- 53:21sleep and spindle interact actions?
- 53:25Yeah, so they are.
- 53:27Basically it's it's mostly slow
- 53:30oscillation that come from the cortex
- 53:32that occur in the same. You know,
- 53:35in a certain timeliness with spindles.
- 53:39So there is that's this is called.
- 53:43Oscillation spindle coupling and they seem
- 53:46to if you have good memory consolidation,
- 53:51you usually have good coupling.
- 53:54It's it's a, I think a a mirror of how
- 53:58well your brain is consolidating these.
- 54:02It's functioning.
- 54:03And as people get older just by aging,
- 54:08this coupling changes and and so
- 54:11it becomes less connected and
- 54:14we think that it it falls apart.
- 54:17This is 1 aspect of what might
- 54:21interfere with. Sleep and memory.
- 54:24Like I said,
- 54:25I think if we just focus on on
- 54:27too much on slow it's sleep.
- 54:29We actually lose track.
- 54:30That REM sleep is also very important
- 54:34and often gets overlooked unfortunately.
- 54:41And then I will ask if N3 sleep
- 54:44is critical for recovery.
- 54:46Although as you mentioned,
- 54:47not the whole story.
- 54:48Given that it naturally diminishes with age,
- 54:50do you think there's a potential
- 54:52that the recovery and learning that
- 54:53you can generate with CPAP therapy
- 54:56diminishes inherently with age?
- 54:58Your ability to recover diminishes with age.
- 55:02Yeah, do you hypothesize that
- 55:05that's the that's the case?
- 55:09It depends, I guess on how much
- 55:11you are recoverable, right?
- 55:12I mean, I think that's probably
- 55:15also very depends on how much
- 55:17your brain is able to recover,
- 55:20but there's definitely a
- 55:21correlation, so if you.
- 55:25Recover so we even saw that in
- 55:27our little group. If they are,
- 55:30they were definitely some participants
- 55:32who didn't recover as much and with
- 55:34with with CPAP and so those are the
- 55:37ones that showed the least memory
- 55:39improvement and the ones that had
- 55:42more recovery had more improvement.
- 55:45I think in general the ability to
- 55:49recover might be lower as you get older,
- 55:52and the question whether it
- 55:53makes a difference or not.
- 55:55I'm not sure, I don't know.
- 55:57It's a good question mark.
- 56:04Well, I think we have gone through
- 56:06all the questions in the chat,
- 56:08so unless there's any other burning
- 56:11questions, I think we all greatly
- 56:14appreciate a fantastic talk on dry.
- 56:17Not sure if you have anything else to add.
- 56:19This was great. Thank you so much.
- 56:21I mean I I think that my my only
- 56:23question was you know the largest
- 56:25randomized smoke with trial of
- 56:27new outcomes and sleep apnea.
- 56:29Apples showed no impact on.
- 56:32Neuro cognition, including memory,
- 56:34verbal and learning, and so.
- 56:36I was just wondering if maybe you
- 56:38could speak a little bit to the
- 56:40reasons why you think that might
- 56:42be the case and how we might.
- 56:44Re address that question with
- 56:45a better trial at some point.
- 56:48Yeah, that's I just want that's
- 56:50what I've met with the this.
- 56:53This streetlight effect I think
- 56:55the problem is the is twofold.
- 56:57One is the there's several trials,
- 56:59but I think in the apples where
- 57:02participants only wore it for
- 57:04three or four hours per night.
- 57:06So it might be the amount of time
- 57:09that people you know the compliance.
- 57:11We had a small group as you saw 15.
- 57:1516 in each group and we had a
- 57:18research assistant who was available.
- 57:20We had somebody who was a trained
- 57:23respiratory therapist in the past
- 57:26who gave them really, we had mass.
- 57:28I mean, we offered them the service that
- 57:30you could normally not offer in real life.
- 57:33So that was one part,
- 57:34but I think the more important one is
- 57:36the type of memory test that you use.
- 57:39So if you use the traditional
- 57:42neurocognitive tests,
- 57:43that neuropsychologists are using.
- 57:45If you do one one time testing,
- 57:48which is what Apple used,
- 57:50you're not gonna see a lot of effect.
- 57:53UM, this one time testing if
- 57:55we do that with with Allah,
- 57:57you know,
- 57:57usually when patients are tested
- 57:59or participants are tested in the
- 58:01evening and they learn a test,
- 58:03you don't see a big difference
- 58:05during that training sessions,
- 58:07which is similar to when you give
- 58:10them the number of backwards or.
- 58:13You know any of the other traditional?
- 58:18Neurocognitive tests,
- 58:18but it's only when you test them a
- 58:22second time over over a night of sleep
- 58:25that you really see and. And really,
- 58:27I mean I stopped at one point because,
- 58:29you know I had a grand and I did
- 58:32emotional procedural. You know,
- 58:34we did various types of memories and also
- 58:37patients were impaired on all of them.
- 58:39Whatever we tested.
- 58:40So at some point you're just going to say,
- 58:43OK, I don't need to do this anymore.
- 58:45This, you know, it doesn't make.
- 58:47Yeah I should more testing.
- 58:48I think that. So using the proper test,
- 58:53now that it's still a question,
- 58:55are they also reflective?
- 58:57If you perform poorly on these tests?
- 58:59Does that mean that that also
- 59:02shows a risk for dementia?
- 59:05Or you know how does this you
- 59:07know there's still a missing link?
- 59:09I think with.
- 59:11But I think in in the immediate
- 59:14improvement and and looking at,
- 59:16I think people need to use different tests.
- 59:22Alright, well thank you so much,
- 59:24I appreciate it and we
- 59:26will see you next month.
- 59:28Thank you everybody, that's good.
- 59:30Thanks for having me bye bye.