A study involving more than 1,700 people from five hospitals in Barcelona, Sweden and Italy has validated the usefulness of a biomarker in blood to detect Alzheimer's disease in the clinical setting. The study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, demonstrates that this test can be a useful and applicable tool in routine medical practice.

The automated analysis of this biomarker is more than 90% effective in identifying patients with Alzheimer's disease. It is an easy-to-use tool that can partly replace other, more complex diagnostic tests, such as lumbar puncture or positron emission tomography (PET).

The study has established cut-off points from which the patient's symptoms can be considered to be caused by Alzheimer's, if Alzheimer's disease can be ruled out, or if further tests are needed to determine the cause of the disease.

In a new Review, Sierra Feeney and colleagues discuss an emerging body of research on the metabolic effects of sleep loss, which disrupts the natural balance of energy within neurons. The authors highlight how the loss of sleep forces neurons to shunt resources to cell survival pathways, at the expense of more long-term, energy-demanding processes such as cognition and memory formation. Concerningly, many of these metabolic shifts are similar to those seen in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. “Given that around one-third of adults and three-quarters of teenagers in the United States report insufficient sleep most nights, a complete understanding of the metabolic consequences of sleep loss is imperative for prevention and treatment of these and other neurodegenerative disorders,” Feeney et al. warn.