Decoding information about cognitive health from the brainwaves of sleep

Noor Adra; Lisa W Dümmer; Luis Paixao; Ryan A Tesh; Haoqi Sun; Wolfgang Ganglberger; Mike Westmeijer; Madalena Da Silva Cardoso; Anagha Kumar; Elissa Ye; Jonathan Henry; Sydney S Cash; Erin Kitchener; Catherine L Leveroni; Rhoda Au; Jonathan Rosand; Joel Salinas; Alice D Lam; Robert J Thomas; M Brandon Westover

doi:10.1038/s41598-023-37128-7

Decoding information about cognitive health from the brainwaves of sleep

Sci Rep. 2023 Jul 15;13(1):11448. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-37128-7.

Authors

Noor Adra^#^{1

2

3}, Lisa W Dümmer^#^{1

2

4}, Luis Paixao^#^{1

2

5}, Ryan A Tesh^#^{1

2

3}, Haoqi Sun^#^{1

2

3}, Wolfgang Ganglberger^{1

2

6}, Mike Westmeijer^{1

2

7}, Madalena Da Silva Cardoso^{1

2}, Anagha Kumar^{1

2}, Elissa Ye^{1

2}, Jonathan Henry^{1

2

3}, Sydney S Cash^{1

2}, Erin Kitchener^{1

2

3}, Catherine L Leveroni¹, Rhoda Au⁸, Jonathan Rosand^{1

3}, Joel Salinas⁹, Alice D Lam^{1

2

3}, Robert J Thomas¹⁰, M Brandon Westover^{11

12

13}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Boston, MA, USA.
² Clinical Data Animation Center (CDAC), MGH, Boston, MA, USA.
³ Henry and Allison McCance Center for Brain Health, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA, 02114, USA.
⁴ University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
⁵ Department of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA.
⁶ Sleep and Health Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
⁷ Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
⁸ Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.
⁹ New York University Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
¹⁰ Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), Boston, MA, USA.
¹¹ Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Boston, MA, USA. [email protected].
¹² Clinical Data Animation Center (CDAC), MGH, Boston, MA, USA. [email protected].
¹³ Henry and Allison McCance Center for Brain Health, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA, 02114, USA. [email protected].

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) signals likely encode brain health information that may identify individuals at high risk for age-related brain diseases. Here, we evaluate the correlation of a previously proposed brain age biomarker, the "brain age index" (BAI), with cognitive test scores and use machine learning to develop and validate a series of new sleep EEG-based indices, termed "sleep cognitive indices" (SCIs), that are directly optimized to correlate with specific cognitive scores. Three overarching cognitive processes were examined: total, fluid (a measure of cognitive processes involved in reasoning-based problem solving and susceptible to aging and neuropathology), and crystallized cognition (a measure of cognitive processes involved in applying acquired knowledge toward problem-solving). We show that SCI decoded information about total cognition (Pearson's r = 0.37) and fluid cognition (Pearson's r = 0.56), while BAI correlated only with crystallized cognition (Pearson's r = - 0.25). Overall, these sleep EEG-derived biomarkers may provide accessible and clinically meaningful indicators of neurocognitive health.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Biomarkers
Brain
Brain Waves*
Cognition
Electroencephalography
Humans
Problem Solving
Sleep*

Substances

Biomarkers

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances

Grants and funding