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[Title card animation: Dementia Australia Research Foundation - Prevent]
[Dr Marina Cavuoto, Monash University]
Dr Marina: My name is Marina Cavuoto. I'm a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow and clinical neuropsychologist at the Turner Institute of Brain and Mental Health, at Monash University. We know that there's a relationship between sleep and dementia, and what we want to understand is whether that relationship is the same for everybody, or whether that might be stronger or less strong in people with different types of genes.
So we know that sleep is really important for health – physical, and mental health – and we also think sleep is important for dementia risk. One of the reasons for that is that toxins build up throughout the day in the brain, and they get flushed out of the brain during sleep. When we don't get enough sleep or we don't get adequate quality sleep, this could lead to the build-up of toxins in the brain that cause different types of dementia.
In our research, what we try and do is look at people who are middle-aged to older age, and look at them over time to see what features are happening first, whether it's the sleep disturbances happening first, or some of those built up of dementia biomarkers, dementia proteins that occur in the brain.
We're interested in looking at the AQP4 gene, or the Aquaporin 4 gene, and we think that this gene has got something to do with how many water channels there are in the brain, which allow the flushing of toxic waste products out of the brain into the cerebral spinal fluid.
When we sleep, our brains are able to flush out the toxic proteins that build up in the brain throughout the day, and we think that the Aquaporin 4 gene has got something to do with that. So, it's associated with how many water channels there are in the brain through which this flushing process occurs. And therefore, people with different types of this gene who might have more or less water channels would be at a greater risk of developing dementia if they also have poor sleep.
I've recently been fortunate enough to be awarded a grant by the Dementia Australia Research Foundation, and this is the Lucas’ Papaw Remedies Grant. And as part of this grant, I'm going to try and answer this question looking at Aquaporin 4 in different cohorts in Australia, and one of those cohorts is the Brain and Cognitive Health Study, the BACH Cohort Study, and we are currently collecting data on that study.
We're asking participants to come and volunteer for our studies, and that involves doing cognitive assessments, having an MRI of their brain, and for some people, doing a lumbar puncture to get cerebral spinal fluid to assess the proteins, the biomarkers that are associated with dementia so we can have an understanding of what's happening in their brain, and we'll track these people over time. We'll also be looking at their genetics and getting an idea of what their Aquaporin 4 gene type is, as well as doing a variety of sleep assessment. Finally, we'll be doing a genetic analysis on people to work out what variant or what type of the Aquaporin 4 gene they have, and that will help us work out whether or not people with different types of the Aquaporin 4 gene are at greater or lower risk of dementia in the face of poor sleep.
What this might mean for the future if we show that people with different kinds of the Aquaporin 4 gene are at greater risk of developing dementia in the face of poor sleep, is that we could target sleep interventions to those people who might be at greatest risk, and therefore, stand to benefit the most from a sleep intervention to prevent dementia. I'm really grateful to Dementia Australia for allowing me to look at this research, which hopefully will contribute to better understanding dementia risk reduction, and what we can do to try and prevent dementia.
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This research is supported by:
The Lucas’ Papaw Remedies Project Grant
Monash University
Dr Cavuoto would like to acknowledge:
The research team (Associate Professor Matthew Pase, Associate Professor Joanne Ryan and Dr Stephanie Ward), Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Epidemiology of Dementia Laboratory (Dr Stephanie Yiallourou, Jessica Nicolazzo, Ella Rowsthorn, Lachlan Cribb, Katherine Franks), Brain and Cognitive Health Cohort Study, The Study of Neurocognitive Outcomes, Radiological and Retinal Effects of Aspirin in Sleep Apnoea, Sleep and Memory Study, and all participants who have generously given their time and effort to our research.
We thank Lucas’ Papaw Remedies for its support.
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Dementia Australia Research Foundation:
A cure is just the beginning
If you would like to see dementia research make real impact, donate today:
1300 636 679
www.dementia.org.au/donate-research
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