• Posted August 14, 2026

Sleep Disturbances Linked To Genetic Alzheimer's Risk

A person’s sleep patterns could be an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease, a new study says.

A greater number of micro-awakenings during sleep is linked to a greater genetic risk for Alzheimer’s, researchers reported recently in the journal Sleep.

In fact, more frequent micro-awakenings go hand in hand with that genetic risk, long before any memory problems arise, according to a team from the University of Liege in Belgium. 

“Sleep could become an accessible marker for the early identification of vulnerable individuals,” senior researcher Gilles Vandewalle said in a news release.

It’s well-known that people with Alzheimer’s have sleep problems, but sleep hasn’t been established as an early indicator of the disease, researchers noted.

For the new study, researchers tracked the sleep of more than 500 healthy people, using brain recordings to note the number of times they woke throughout the night. These “micro-awakenings” are brief periods of brain activity that do not fully wake a person but can disrupt their sleep cycle.

The team compared these awakenings to each person’s genetic risk score for developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Results showed that a greater frequency of awakenings among late-middle-aged adults (average age: 59) was linked to higher genetic-driven odds for developing Alzheimer’s disease. The same wasn’t observed among younger adults.

“These micro-awakenings are therefore not insignificant,” co-author Puneet Talwar, a research assistant at the university, said in a news release. “Certain profiles could promote the accumulation of proteins involved in Alzheimer’s disease and be associated with increased vulnerability.”

Researchers suspect these awakenings could be linked to the coeruleus locus, a place in the brainstem about the size of a grain of rice that is involved in wakefulness, attention and sleep regulation.

The coeruleus locus is one of the first brain regions where abnormal protein deposits linked to Alzheimer’s start to appear, sometimes as early as in a person’s teen years, researchers said. This region is also closely linked to sleep quality.

“This region is difficult to observe, but it appears to play a role in the early mechanisms linked to the disease,” Vanderwalle said.

However, researchers noted that their study does not prove a direct cause-and-effect link between sleep problems and Alzheimer’s, and that more study is needed to understand the association.

More information

The Sleep Foundation has more about sleep and Alzheimer’s disease.

SOURCES: University of Liege, news release, Aug. 11, 2026; Sleep, May 22, 2026