Topic description

Human neuroimaging studies of the last decades have revealed that the accumulation of metabolic waste in the brain begins around the age of 50, is highly heterogeneous from one subject to another and could be at the root of neurodegenerative diseases. Sleep/wake cycle quality during this critical period could be major determinants of this heterogeneity. Importantly, there is mounting evidence that waste clearance of the brain follows a sleep/wake cycle. Sleep/wake cycle disturbances in early old age could be associated with a disruption in the brain's clearance system, leading to an accumulation of waste products such as amyloid and tau proteins, thereby increasing the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Using innovative MRI sequences coupled with deep learning post-processing methods, recently described MRI markers for estimating both the anatomical and functional integrity of the brain's clearance system will be examined: anatomical featu...