{"id":1978,"date":"2023-01-18T11:57:59","date_gmt":"2023-01-18T11:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/?p=1978"},"modified":"2023-08-02T17:19:44","modified_gmt":"2023-08-02T17:19:44","slug":"combating-alzheimers-through-sleep-exercise-and-early-detection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/combating-alzheimers-through-sleep-exercise-and-early-detection\/","title":{"rendered":"Combating Alzheimer\u2019s Through Sleep, Exercise, and Early Detection"},"content":{"rendered":"

The medical community has been trying to uncover the causes of Alzheimer\u2019s disease<\/a> since it was first diagnosed over a century ago. Now, a team of researchers at the University of Miami is hoping that revolutionary technology can finally help find the answer.<\/p>\n

Using a combination of advanced sleep monitors, fitness trackers, and a wearable device that tracks the amount of light a person is exposed to each day, the study will try to determine whether something as simple as proper sleep and exercise can halt the development of the debilitating disease. This combination, researchers hope, will help the body eliminate the toxins that build up in the brain and lead to cognitive decline.<\/p>\n

\"Azizi\u201cExercise is good for brain integrity, to maintain the structure of the brain. And sleep could be the elixir of preventing cognitive decline,\u201d said Azizi Seixas<\/strong>, the Principal Investigator of the study, Director of the U\u2019s Media and Innovation Lab<\/a> (\u201cThe MIL\u201d), and Director of Population Health Informatics<\/a> at the University\u2019s Institute for Data Science & Computing<\/a> (IDSC).<\/p>\n

Researchers have long tried to understand the relationship between a person\u2019s sleep and exercise habits and their likelihood of developing Alzheimer\u2019s. But most of those studies have relied on participants self-reporting their sleep patterns or required participants to sleep in laboratories connected to a variety of devices. The University of Miami study, titled Combating Alzheimer’s Through Sleep and Exercise<\/strong><\/a> (CASE), is changing all of that.<\/p>\n

\"Fitbit<\/center>It will give participants wearable monitors that allow them to go about their lives while providing researchers with a wealth of data about their daytime activity\u2014how much exercise they do and how much light they\u2019re exposed to, and, how they get through each night\u2014how much and what kind of sleep they get. \u201cWe\u2019re not doing it in a sterile laboratory setting,\u201d Seixas said. \u201cWe want to do it in the wild where people live, work, play, worship, and the like.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we want to arrest the progression of cognitive impairment and Alzheimer\u2019s disease, we have to start earlier.\u201d<\/h4>\n

The study, which will start recruiting volunteers in January 2023, is unique in other ways. While most Alzheimer\u2019s research has focused on elderly participants already suffering from the disease, the UM study will include people as young as 45 years old to test whether changes in sleep and exercise can stop Alzheimer\u2019s from developing in the first place. \u201cIf we want to arrest the progression of cognitive impairment and Alzheimer\u2019s disease, we have to start earlier,\u201d Seixas said.<\/p>\n

\"DreemIn all, the study will include 30 participants broken up into different groups. One group will use a DREEM 2 Headband<\/a>, a headset that helps people achieve \u201cdeep sleep\u201d by emitting bone conduction stimulation while tracking brain activity with a level of precision equal to most laboratory equipment. A second group will conduct a predetermined series of exercises at least twice a week while wearing a Fitbit<\/a>, a popular activity-monitoring bracelet. A third group will use both methods.<\/p>\n

All participants will also use a LYS monitor<\/a> that tracks the amount of sunlight they\u2019re exposed to each day, and will provide samples of their blood and urine to measure cardiovascular biomarkers. Participants will also receive $75 for their work over the three-month study, and will receive a wireless hotspot if they don\u2019t have a strong enough Internet connection in their home. Researchers will use yet another novel technology called Altoida<\/a> that serves as a cognitive assessment tool throughout the process.<\/p>\n

\"LYS<\/center>
\nJesse Moore<\/strong>, a Clinical Research Coordinator at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine who is coordinating the study, believes those kinds of tools are most important for minority communities that don\u2019t have equal access to healthcare and thus don\u2019t fully engage in activities that would benefit their long-term health. If the study proves successful, Seixas and Moore hope that political and healthcare leaders will make those kinds of devices more affordable and available to people of all income levels.<\/p>\n

Pictured below, The UM Translational Sleep and Circadian Science team<\/a>, from left, Malik Ellington, Director Girardin Jean-Louis, Judite Blanc<\/strong>, Jesse Moore<\/strong>, Arlener D. Turner, co-founder Azizi Seixas<\/strong>, Kaitlin Hahn, Tocarra Ware, Bernadete Rudovic, Bruno Oliveira, and Ana Gabriela Sanchez Alfonso.<\/small><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\u201cThe easiest way to get people to engage in those activities is to put the power in their own hands,\u201d Moore said. \u201cIf you give the participant this agency with their own health and give them these devices, not only is it much easier for them to complete it and to engage in these kinds of activities, it also increases their health literacy and increases the likelihood that they\u2019ll engage with other health behaviors and engage with the healthcare system more often.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study is one part of Seixas\u2019 broader goal of using emerging technologies to improve patient health. In a separate study<\/a>, he\u2019s using virtual reality (VR) headsets to ease the stress that overwhelms pregnant mothers. In another study<\/a>, he\u2019s creating \u201cdigital twins\u201d of participants using health and environmental data collected from in-home and on-body sensors that will allow researchers to use artificial intelligence to virtually test and evaluate various treatment options before using it on the real-life patient.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bedrocks of our group are innovation and equity,\u201d Seixas said. \u201cThat means we want to find innovative ways to make complex things simpler, useful, and impactful.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The medical community has been trying to uncover the causes of Alzheimer\u2019s disease since it was first diagnosed over a century ago. Now, a team of researchers at the University of Miami is hoping that revolutionary technology can finally help find the answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1853,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,866],"tags":[763,618,642,765,759,734,760,761,766,762,643,764,767,512],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1979,"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978\/revisions\/1979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}