Introduction Aging is accompanied by cognitive decline, particularly affecting memory
functions. Additionally, both the quantity and quality of sleep decrease with advancing
age, specifically altering sleep oscillations (such as slow waves) that are involved in
the reactivation of memories and are thus central to memory consolidation.
Aging is also associated with difficulties in maintaining daytime vigilance, even after a
period of rest, impacting cognitive function, including the encoding and retrieval of
memories. Interestingly, recent studies have revealed the existence of sleep intrusions,
in the form of slow waves, in wakefulness EEG recordings. These have been associated with
subjective and objective markers of fatigue, predict transient lapses in attention, and
are particularly present after sleep deprivation. the investigators believe that slow
waves, during both sleep and wakefulness, could constitute a common biomarker of sleep
disturbances and daytime vigilance problems. A dysregulation of slow waves (fewer during
sleep, more during wakefulness) could thus explain the impact of aging on the three
fundamental stages of the memory process (encoding, consolidation, and retrieval). Since
alterations in memory capacity, attention, and sleep quality are further exacerbated in
patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), the investigators propose to study the links
between aging (normal and pathological), sleep and daytime vigilance alterations, and
their impacts on the different key stages of memory.
Aims Our main objective is to test the associations between slow waves (during sleep and
wakefulness) and the alterations in memory and vigilance during normal and pathological
aging by studying young adults, seniors without cognitive disorders, and patients of the
same age with prodromal AD.
Additionally, the investigators aim to test the efficiency of targeted memory
reactivation (TMR) in older adults with and without cognitive deficits. TMR is a
technique that has been showed to boost memory consolidation in young adults and mice by
replaying during sleep sensory cues that have been previously associated with the
learning material.
Methods Participants To do so, the stydy will include three groups: young adults (18-35
y.o), older adults without cognitive deficits (65-80 y.o), and older adults of the same
age and with cognitive deficits (patients with prodromal Alzheimer's disease). Prodromal
stage of Alzheimer's disease diagnosis will be performed by trained neurologists at the
at the Memory and Alzheimer's Disease Institute (IM2A) of the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital,
according to international diagnostic criteria as a clinical phenotype of progressive
amnestic syndrome of the hippocampal type, associated with biological markers of
Alzheimer's disease from lumbar puncture (Aβ < 600 pg/mL and ptau > 60 pg/mL). During
their clinical follow-up at the IM2A, patients diagnosed with prodromal AD will be
offered the opportunity to participate in the study, in agreement with their attending
physician. Healthy volunteers (both young and elderly) will be recruited through public
announcements via the Relay for Information on Cognitive Sciences (RISC), from patients'
relatives, or through the Fondation Recherche Alzheimer. Participation of both patients
and healthy individuals will be voluntary, free, and informed. Participants will be
contacted (by phone or email) by one of the study investigators. They will be informed
about the conduct and purpose of the research protocol.
Protocol All participants will spend 3 days in the Sleep Disorders Unit of the
Salpêtrière Hospital, including two nights.
Day 1: Participants will arrive in the late afternoon and will be fitted with the sensors
required for video-polysomnography to monitor vigilance and sleep stages throughout the
experiment. Then, they will 1) complete an attention task (modified version of the
Sustained Attention to Response Task, SART), 2) perform an associated memory task
(old/new task) consisting on recognition of words they have seen in the SART task, and 3)
their resting-state EEG activity will be recorded. They will sleep in the laboratory
(night 1, without intervention).
Day 2: Participants will retake the word recognition task the morning after night 1.
During the afternoon they will fill different sleep questionnaires to assess their
subjective feeling about their sleep: Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI), Epworth
sleepiness scale and the REM Behavior Disorder Screening Questionnaire (RBDSQ), as well
as the geriatric depression scale (GDS). In the late afternoon, they will perform the
learning and test phases of the visuospatial memory task. They will then sleep in the
laboratory (night 2, with TMR). During their slow-wave sleep, half of the sounds
associated with the items from the visuospatial memory task will be replayed.
Day 3: Participants will once again perform the visuospatial memory test the morning
after night 2.
