Acoustic Stimulation of Sleep to Enhance Brain Health and Cognition

The purpose of this project is to see if enhancing deep sleep using sounds can help improve memory, cognition, and brain health by clearing out toxins like amyloid and tau from the brain. There is evidence that the deepest form of sleep, slow wave sleep, may help in reducing the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. One way deep sleep may affect the risk of Alzheimer’s disease risk is by helping the brain and body clear out chemicals. We aim to test whether improving deep sleep using a treatment helps with this clearance and explore what health and lifestyles factors might influence the results.

People who meet the following criteria may be eligible to participate:

• Be aged 60-75
• Be a healthy, regular sleeper
• Have no medical, psychiatric, neurological, or sleep disorders

Participants will be reimbursed $1000 for completing the study and will be offered personalised reports of their sleep and cognition

Phase 1

• A telephone interview to determine eligibility
• An in person consent meeting and cognitive testing
• An overnight sleep disorder screen in your home and an ECG
   

Phase 2

• Two weeks of at home monitoring of your sleep: one with acoustic tones to enhance deep sleep, and one without
• Two daytime cognitive testing sessions at the end of each week
   

Phase 3

• A week of at home monitoring
• An overnight stay in the Austin Health Sleep Laboratory with cognitive testing and blood sampling
   

Phase 4

• MR-PET scan of your brain