Summary: A study from the University of Hong Kong reveals that poor sleep in older adults disrupts the brain’s glymphatic system—responsible for waste clearance—leading to impaired memory and highlighting sleep’s crucial role in healthy brain aging.
Key Takeaways:
- The study confirms that poor sleep quality in older adults is linked to dysfunction in the glymphatic system, which clears toxic waste from the brain.
- Sleep quality influences the functioning of multimodal brain networks, affecting overall brain activity and memory performance.
- The findings are based on functional MRI scans and sleep recordings from 72 older adults, offering direct evidence of the link between sleep, brain networks, and glymphatic function.
Poor sleep among older adults is linked to disruptions in the brain’s waste removal system, according to researchers at The University of Hong Kong (HKU). A recent study led by Tatia M.C. Lee, PhD, RPsych, chair professor of Psychological Science and Clinical Psychology and May Professor in Neuropsychology at HKU, offers valuable insight into how sleep quality impacts brain functioning.
Many studies have linked poor sleep with a decline in brain functioning. Lee’s team focused on the glial-lymphatic (glymphatic) system, a fluid transport pathway that plays a vital role in clearing waste from the brain.
Lee and her team sought to understand the glymphatic-brain relationship in poor sleepers. Dysfunction of the glymphatic system leads to the accumulation of toxic proteins, and this process has recently been implicated in several neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and epilepsy.
“Sleep quality, brain activities, and glymphatic functioning are related. Understanding how sleep quality influences the glymphatic system and human brain networks offers valuable insight into the neurophysiological mechanisms underpinning age-related memory change,” Lee says in a release.
The research team studied 72 older adults using functional MRI scans and sleep recordings. The findings indicate that poor sleep quality adversely affects normal brain function. “The results clearly reveal the effect of sleep on the human brain’s network through the glymphatic system, which in turn affects memory performance in older adults,” Lee says. “Therefore, maintaining efficient glymphatic functioning seems crucial for promoting healthy aging.”
The results add important evidence that sleep quality affects cognitive health through the underlying neural relationships. “Impaired memory is a common complaint among older adults with poor sleep quality,” Lee says. “Our results provide a novel perspective on the interplay between sleep, the glymphatic system, and multimodal brain networks.”
This study was recently published in Molecular Psychiatry.
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