The National Institutes of Health has awarded Joyita Dutta, a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, $3.9 million over five years to study whether wearable sleep trackers can predict blood biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease in at-risk patients.
Sleep disruption is one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease, even before cognitive symptoms manifest. However, gold standard sleep assessments are expensive and usually provide data from only one night. Aiming to expand early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, Dutta will assess whether unobtrusive sleep trackers can record sleep patterns that correlate with future cognitive decline, as indicated by blood biomarkers.
While she doesn’t see wearable devices as a replacement for clinical approaches to detect Alzheimer’s disease or cognitive changes, they could be a tool to identify high-risk individuals and serve as an early warning system.
Many people these days already wear smartwatches to sleep. Imagine receiving an alert from your smartwatch advising you to see a neurologist. That could be the direction we go.”
Joyita Dutta, professor of biomedical engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Her study will evaluate the sleep patterns of people with a genetic predisposition to developing Alzheimer’s disease but no observable signs of cognitive impairment. Instead of completing a one-night sleep study, participants will also wear three types of sleep trackers for a week: the Apple Watch, the Oura Ring, and CGX Patch, a wearable electroencephalogram (EEG) that is essentially a sticky forehead patch with metal Electrodes that measure brain activity.
The data from these wearables will be compared with new blood tests that measure amyloid and tau proteins, important early biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease. This assessment is repeated after two years to detect possible changes.
“Our previous work includes developing AI-based predictive models that connect sleep patterns to cognitive disorders. This grant will allow us to take that research to the next level,” says Dutta. “The project will enable the integration of a wealth of new data: genetic information, wearable-derived metrics and blood-based biomarkers to create a more comprehensive picture of the sleep-dementia axis.”
Although blood tests for Alzheimer’s disease are becoming increasingly accurate, identifying who should undergo these tests and be referred to a neurologist remains a challenge. Dutta notes that “Wearables are here to stay. They could fill this gap in diagnostics, enabling early detection of Alzheimer’s disease.”