Investigating the links between sleep microstructure, cognition and PET biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease neuropathology

Sleep is an essential physiological state, present throughout the animal kingdom, and known to play a key role for both health and cognition in humans. Importantly, sleep is known to undergo a series of changes across the human lifespan, while and increasing amount of evidence is showing these age-related alterations in sleep are linked to cognitive and cerebral pathophysiological changes.
In the present dissertation, we will first introduce the organisation of sleep and describe models contributing to the regulation of the sleep-wake cycle, as well as the reported functions of sleep. We will then present some main aspects of sleep microstructure at the level of the electroencephalogram (EEG), and the relationship between sleep and the changes at the cognitive and cerebral level during the ageing process, including pathological aging and more particularly Alzheimer’s disease (AD). (...)