Sleep/wake cycle alterations as a cause of neurodegenerative diseases: a Mendelian randomization study

Cullell, N ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5118-1014, Cárcel-Márquez, J ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6949-0699, Gallego-Fábrega, C, Muiño, E, Llucià-Carol, L, Lledós, M ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8832-789X, Amaut, KEU, Krupinski, J ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5136-8898 and Fernández-Cadenas, I (2021) Sleep/wake cycle alterations as a cause of neurodegenerative diseases: a Mendelian randomization study. Neurobiology of Aging, 106. 320.e1-320.e12. ISSN 0197-4580

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Abstract

Sleep and/or wake cycle alterations are common in neurodegenerative diseases (ND). Our aim was to determine whether there is a causal relationship between sleep and/or wake cycle patterns and ND (Parkinson's disease (PD) age at onset (AAO), Alzheimer's disease (AD), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)) using two-sample Mendelian Randomization (MR). We selected 12 sleep traits with available Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) to evaluate their causal relationship with the ND risk through Inverse-Variance Weighted regression as main analysis. We used as outcome the latest ND GWAS with available summary-statistics: PD-AAO (N = 17,996), AD (N = 21,235) and ALS (N = 40,136). MR results pointed to a causal effect of subjective and objective-measured morning chronotype on later PD-AAO (95%CI:0.33-1.81, p = 8.47×10−09 and 95%CI:-7.28 to -4.44, p = 5.87×10−16, respectively). Sleep efficiency was causally associated with a decreased AD risk (95%CI:-20.408 to -0.66, p = 0.04) and daytime sleepiness with an increased ALS risk (95%CI:0.15 to 1.61, p = 0.01). Our study suggests that sleep and/or wake patterns have causal relationship with ND. Given that sleep and/or wake patterns are modifiable risk factors, sleep interventions should be investigated as a potential treatment in PD-AAO, AD and ALS.