Over the past 6 years and with National Institute of Aging support, Advanced Brain Monitoring has formed a research consortium to assist in the validation of sleep biomarkers for use in phenotyping specific neurodegenerative disorders.
Our recent manuscripts describe the discovery of a new biomarker called non-REM hypertonia (NRH). We’ve evaluated NRH in its relationship to REM sleep without atonia and further validated our staging accuracy in patients with isolated REM sleep behavior disorder. We’ve also studied how NRH relates to sleep spindle activity and autonomic dysregulation.
We recently presented data that investigated whether atypical N3 sleep was a biomarker for altered mental status in Lewy body disease. We’ve also reported a strong association between sleep and wake EEG slowing attributed to neurodegeneration.
In 2019, we identified an association between supine sleep and neurodegenerative disorders. At JSSR we updated our findings, describing a potential mechanism of action and confirming an association between supine sleep and Lewy body disease, Alzheimer’s disease or mild cognitive impairment.
We also completed community-based surveys, finding 87% of older adults want to know if they are at-risk for a neurodegenerative disorder, and what physicians should and should not do to help them.
We have now applied AI to nine sleep biomarkers to provide a neurodegenerative disorder risk for the categories normal, Lewy body disorder, Alzheimer’s disorder, or prodromal synucleinopathy. Access to the NDD reports will make it available to researchers and a limited number of clinicians as we further validate it.
Key findings are explained in this 40-minute video presentation summarizing our sleep biomarker studies:
