The indirect relationship between sleep and cognition in the PREVENT cohort: identifying targets for intervention

Benjamin Tari, Michael Ben Yehuda, Axel Anders Stefan Laurell, Karen Ritchie, Yves Dauvilliers, Craig W. Ritchie, Brian Lawlor, Lorina Naci, Graciela Muniz Terrera, Paresh Malhotra, Tam Watermeyer, Robert Dudas, Benjamin R Underwood, John T O’Brien, Vanessa Raymont, Ivan Koychev.

Frontiers in Sleep (2023)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.numecd.2023.07.020

Summary

As the global population ages, it is critical to understand factors associated with cognitive decline, such as sleep.  Sleep has been shown to maintain cognitive function and protect against the onset of chronic disease, but too much or too little has been linked to cognitive impairment, depression and dementia onset.  Here, we aimed to identify links between sleep, depression and cognition.  Our analyses found that sleep was related to participants’ ratings of symptoms of depression, and that their feelings of depression were associated with cognitive performance.  Our results provide a base from which cognition, dementia onset, and potential points of intervention, may be better understood.