This study could help clinicians use sleep brain wave patterns to diagnose dementia and other forms of cognitive impairment

Clinicians can assess certain brain wave patterns that occur during an individual's sleep to help them diagnose dementia and other disorders related to memory, language and thinking

Sleep spindles are bursts of brain activity that occur during non-REM sleep and can be assessed by electroencephalography (EECs) with non-invasive electrodes placed on the scalp

"As the burden of neurodegenerative disease increases, there is an urgent need for a sensitive cognitive biomarker

While sleep spindles and other brain features represent potential electrophysiological markers of neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders, detecting and assessing sleep spindles is not straightforward

Sleep spindles are typically analyzed by visual inspection of the EEG, but automated methods can provide more consistent results

To address these questions, the researchers designed sleep-related experiments involving 167 adults to describe how spindle detection parameter settings affect the link between spindle characteristics and cognition, and to identify the parameters most associated with cognitive performance

The team also found that sleep spindles were most strongly linked to fluid intelligence

"The sleep spindle is one of many important measurable features of brain activity during sleep and provides a window into the current state of brain health and an individual's risk of developing brain disease or cognitive decline