Dr. Orfeo Buxton

We're also actively remembering and actively forgetting and lots of other hormonal and neurologic processes are occurring overnight that

contribute to the restorative sense if the sleep is good.

The glymphatic system is this flow of interstitial fluid between neurons that can cleanse the brain overnight.

It's been called the garbage truck of the brain.

And so it's this idea that there are metabolites that are related to Alzheimer's disease risk, like amyloid beta, that when they're soluble or dissolve in this fluid in our brain, they can flow out of the brain and therefore not collect and cause these deposits that may be related to Alzheimer's disease long term.

It is.

We're trying to look at the modifiable factors that influence

Alzheimer's disease risk.

So Alzheimer's is a disease that really has been progressing for decades at least before it's actually a full diagnosis.

So we're working in studying in this case people who have not dementia but are decades before that and we want to see what aspects of sleep are

poor decades before and predict cognitive impairment.

Here we're showing day to day that sleep quality, something like an insomnia, would be related to cognitive function day to day and between people.

And so that suggests that treating insomnia early and with processes that are non-medication, non-pharmacological, could be one way to prevent Alzheimer's.

That's one of the long-term goals of this work.

Well, there are a lot of things that are contributing to our sleep.

And so it's kind of an individual thing and it's rarely just one thing.

So one main piece of advice is not to worry about sleep because stressing about that just makes your sleep worse.

And that opens the whole can of worms about just dealing with stress.

The world is a stressful place.

And so it's how we cope.