Researches from Melbourne’s Monash University are investigating the use of acoustic stimulation to induce ‘deep sleep’ in the hope of delaying Alzheimer’s disease.
During our deepest stage of sleep our brain carries out housekeeping to store away memories and remove the build-up of toxins or brain plaques, associated with developing Alzheimer’s disease.
Associate Professor Clare Anderson and her team will use cutting edge technologies such as acoustic stimulation on volunteers to induce deep sleep, while also taking blood samples while they slumber (without waking volunteers up!). This will allow them to analyse affects on neural activity while sleeping, and also measure how much toxin is being cleared from the brain during deep sleep.
This study has the potential to reveal intervention for sleep that could help reduce this risk of Alzheimer’s disease,
For more information:
