Researchers have discovered a brain activity pattern that can predict which people with mild cognitive impairment are likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. Using a noninvasive brain scanning technique and a custom analysis tool, they detected subtle changes in electrical signals tied to memory processing years before diagnosis. The findings point to a new way of spotting Alzheimer’s early—by listening directly to how neurons behave.
In his book “Why We Sleep,” Mathew Walker explained that Alzheimer’s detection via EEG monitoring during sleep was a major reason he decided to switch to studying sleep 20 years ago. He was trying to originally study diseases like Alzheimer’s and found that there was not much information on why identification on EEG was detectable before symptoms occurred, such as forgetting items’s locations.
I wonder if this is along the same lines, like a wider variety of EEG signal detection, clearer or more accurate diagnosis, or something entirely different. It looks like subjects were still awake but in a restful state, so maybe testing also does not require as much time as a full sleep study.
REM sleep is important, it opens up the brain like a sponge and metabolites are washed away by the cerebral spinal fluid.