Explanipedia

REM Sleep Misfires: Intruding Delta Waves Forecast Tau, Amyloid, and Forgetting in Aging Open

Tenzin Desel, Matthew P. Walker, C. Scott Brown, Cindy Chen, Trevor Chadwick , et al. · 2025

Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep degrades with age, and more severely in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). REM sleep comprises about twenty percent of adult sleep, alternates between phasic and tonic periods, and includes delta waves (1-4Hz) in two …

Slow wave synchrony during NREM sleep tracks cognitive impairment in prodromal Alzheimer's disease Open

O. Sharon, Vladislav Zhelezniakov, Yael Gat, Rotem Falach, Darya Narbayev , et al. · 2025

INTRODUCTION Alzheimer's disease (AD) disrupts human sleep architecture more severely than normal aging. However, it remains unclear how AD changes oscillatory neural activity during sleep, and whether such changes foreshadow cognitive dec…

Restless nights, cold hearts: Poor sleep causally blunts empathy Open

Tom Gordon‐Hecker, Shoham Choshen‐Hillel, Eti Ben Simon, Matthew P. Walker, Anat Perry , et al. · 2025

Poor sleep is pervasive in modern society. Poor sleep is associated with major physical and mental health consequences, as well as with impaired cognitive function. Less is known about the relationship between sleep and emotional and inter…

Cohort profile: the BangladEsh Longitudinal Investigation of Emerging Vascular and nonvascular Events (BELIEVE) cohort study Open

Rajiv Chowdhury, Nusrat Khan, Lisa Pennells, Maria LC Iurilli, Md Taslim Uddin Miah , et al. · 2025

Purpose Bangladesh has experienced a rapid epidemiological transition from communicable to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in recent decades. There is, however, limited evidence about multidimensional determinants of NCDs in this populati…

The new science of sleep: From cells to large-scale societies Open

O. Sharon, Eti Ben Simon, Vyoma D. Shah, Tenzin Desel, Matthew P. Walker · 2024

In the past 20 years, more remarkable revelations about sleep and its varied functions have arguably been made than in the previous 200. Building on this swell of recent findings, this essay provides a broad sampling of selected research h…

Tau pathology leads to lonely non-traveling slow waves that mediate human memory impairment Open

O. Sharon, Xi Chen, Jason Dude, Vyoma D. Shah, Yo‐El S. Ju , et al. · 2024

Memory markedly declines with age, exaggerated in those with Alzheimer’s disease, yet the mechanisms are still not resolved. Here, we show that frontal lobe tau pathology in humans leads to impaired en masse unity and cortical traveling pr…

The Negative Effects of Travel on Student Athletes Through Sleep and Circadian Disruption Open

H. Craig Heller, Erik D. Herzog, Allison J. Brager, Gina R. Poe, Ravi Allada , et al. · 2023

Collegiate athletes must satisfy the academic obligations common to all undergraduates, but they have the additional structural and social stressors of extensive practice time, competition schedules, and frequent travel away from their hom…

Correction: Sleep loss leads to the withdrawal of human helping across individuals, groups, and large-scale societies Open

Eti Ben Simon, Raphaël Vallat, Aubrey Rossi, Matthew P. Walker · 2023

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001733.].

Sleep, alcohol, and caffeine in financial traders Open

Frank Song, Matthew P. Walker · 2023

Alcohol and caffeine are two of the most commonly used substances for altering human consciousness. While their adverse effects on sleep have been separately examined in the laboratory and epidemiological levels, how they impact real-world…

Human REM sleep recalibrates neural activity in support of memory formation Open

Janna D. Lendner, Niels Niethard, Bryce A. Mander, Frank J. van Schalkwijk, Sigrid Schuh‐Hofer , et al. · 2023

The proposed mechanisms of sleep-dependent memory consolidation involve the overnight regulation of neural activity at both synaptic and whole-network levels. Now, there is a lack of in vivo data in humans elucidating if, and how, sleep an…

Specific quinone reductase 2 inhibitors reduce metabolic burden and reverse Alzheimer’s disease phenotype in mice Open

Nathaniel Gould, Gila R. Scherer, Sílvia Carvalho, Khriesto A. Shurrush, Haneen Kayyal , et al. · 2023

Biological aging can be described as accumulative, prolonged metabolic stress and is the major risk factor for cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Recently, we identified and described a quinone reductase 2 (QR2) pathway in the…

Coordinated human sleeping brainwaves map peripheral body glucose homeostasis Open

Raphaël Vallat, Vyoma D. Shah, Matthew P. Walker · 2023

Insufficient sleep impairs glucose regulation, increasing the risk of diabetes. However, what it is about the human sleeping brain that regulates blood sugar remains unknown. In an examination of over 600 humans, we demonstrate that the co…

NREM sleep as a novel protective cognitive reserve factor in the face of Alzheimer's disease pathology Open

Zsófia Zavecz, Vyoma D. Shah, Olivia G. Murillo, Raphaël Vallat, Bryce A. Mander , et al. · 2023

Background Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology impairs cognitive function. Yet some individuals with high amounts of AD pathology suffer marked memory impairment, while others with the same degree of pathology burden show little impairment.…

Sleep as a vital sign Open

Matthew E. Hirschtritt, Matthew P. Walker, Andrew D. Krystal · 2023

Sleep is causally linked to the maintenance of every major physiological body system and disturbed sleep contributes to myriad diseases. The problem is, however, is that patients do not consistently, nor spontaneously, report sleep problem…

Personalized transcranial alternating current stimulation improves sleep quality: Initial findings Open

V. Ayanampudi, V. Kumar, A. Krishnan, Matthew P. Walker, Richard B. Ivry , et al. · 2023

Insufficient sleep is a major health issue. Inadequate sleep is associated with an array of poor health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, certain forms of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, anxiety, and s…

How people wake up is associated with previous night’s sleep together with physical activity and food intake Open

Raphaël Vallat, Sarah Berry, Neli Tsereteli, Joan Capdevila Pujol, Haya Al Khatib , et al. · 2022

Personalized transcranial alternating current stimulation improves sleep quality: Initial Findings Open

V. Ayanampudi, V. Kumar, A. Krishnan, Matthew P. Walker, Richard B. Ivry , et al. · 2022

Insufficient sleep is a major health issue. Inadequate sleep is associated with an array of poor health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, certain forms of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, anxiety, and s…

Sleep loss leads to the withdrawal of human helping across individuals, groups, and large-scale societies Open

Eti Ben Simon, Raphaël Vallat, Aubrey Rossi, Matthew P. Walker · 2022

Humans help each other. This fundamental feature of homo sapiens has been one of the most powerful forces sculpting the advent of modern civilizations. But what determines whether humans choose to help one another? Across 3 replicating stu…

A Nationally Representative Survey Assessing Restorative Sleep in US Adults Open

Rebecca Robbins, Stuart F. Quan, Daniel J. Buysse, Matthew D. Weaver, Matthew P. Walker , et al. · 2022

Restorative sleep is a commonly used term but a poorly defined construct. Few studies have assessed restorative sleep in nationally representative samples. We convened a panel of 7 expert physicians and researchers to evaluate and enhance …

Impact of insufficient sleep on dysregulated blood glucose control under standardised meal conditions Open

Neli Tsereteli, Raphaël Vallat, Juan Fernández‐Tajes, Linda M. Delahanty, José M. Ordovás , et al. · 2021

An open-source, high-performance tool for automated sleep staging Open

Raphaël Vallat, Matthew P. Walker · 2021

The clinical and societal measurement of human sleep has increased exponentially in recent years. However, unlike other fields of medical analysis that have become highly automated, basic and clinical sleep research still relies on human v…

Author response: An open-source, high-performance tool for automated sleep staging Open

Raphaël Vallat, Matthew P. Walker · 2021

Tau and β-Amyloid Burden Predict Actigraphy-Measured and Self-Reported Impairment and Misperception of Human Sleep Open

Joseph R. Winer, Allison Morehouse, Laura Fenton, Theresa M. Harrison, Lylian Ayangma , et al. · 2021

Alzheimer's disease is associated with poor sleep, but the impact of tau and β-amyloid (Aβ) pathology on sleep remains largely unknown. Here, we test the hypothesis that tau and Aβ predict unique impairments in objective and self-perceived…

Dynamics and evolution of β-catenin-dependent Wnt signaling revealed through massively parallel clonogenic screening Open

Pavak K. Shah, Matthew P. Walker, Christopher E. Sims, Michael B. Major, Nancy L. Allbritton · 2021

Wnt/β-catenin signaling is of significant interest due to the roles it plays in regulating development, tissue regeneration and disease. Transcriptional reporters have been widely employed to study Wnt/β-catenin signal transduction in live…

A universal, open-source, high-performance tool for automated sleep staging Open

Raphaël Vallat, Matthew P. Walker · 2021

The creation of a completely automated sleep-scoring system that is highly accurate, flexible, well validated, free and simple to use by anyone has yet to be accomplished. In part, this is due to the difficulty of use of existing algorithm…

Sleep Loss Impacts the Interconnected Brain-Body-Mood Regulation of Cardiovascular Function in Humans Open

Adam Krause, Raphaël Vallat, Eti Ben Simon, Matthew P. Walker · 2021

Poor sleep is associated with hypertension, a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease 1,2 . However, the mechanism(s) through which sleep loss impacts blood pressure remain largely unknown, including the inter-related brain and periph…

Sleep essentialism Open

Matthew P. Walker · 2021

Sensitivity of objective and subjective sleep features to tau and Aβ burden in healthy older adults Open

Joseph R. Winer, Allison Morehouse, Laura Fenton, Theresa M. Harrison, Suzanne L. Baker , et al. · 2020

Background Impaired sleep is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) as well as a symptom of AD pathological progression. Recent work has established associations between disrupted sleep electrophysiology and AD pathology before the ons…

Sleep disturbance is associated with longitudinal Aβ accumulation in healthy older adults Open

Joseph R. Winer, Bryce A. Mander, William J. Jagust, Matthew P. Walker · 2020

Background Work in rodent models of Alzheimer’s disease has demonstrated that sleep disturbance leads to increased β‐amyloid (Aβ) production and decreased clearance. Impaired sleep quality has been shown to predict Aβ burden in healthy old…

Author Correction: Overanxious and underslept Open

Eti Ben Simon, Aubrey Rossi, Allison G. Harvey, Matthew P. Walker · 2020

Matthew P. Walker YOU? Author Swipe