Researchers and caregivers have noted that excessive daytime napping can develop long before the memory problems associated with Alzheimer’s disease begin to unfold. Prior studies have considered this excessive daytime napping to be compensation for poor nighttime sleep caused by Alzheimer’s-related disruptions in sleep-promoting brain regions, while others have argued that the sleep problems themselves contribute to the progression of the disease. But now UC San Francisco scientists have provided a striking new biological explanation for this phenomenon, showing instead that Alzheimer’s disease directly attacks brain regions responsible for wakefulness during the day.
The…
