Another Reason to Catch Some Zzzs: Sleep Regulates Tau Release

25 Jan 2019

As if we needed yet another reason to get a good night’s sleep. David Holtzman and colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis claim in the January 24 Science that tau in a person’s cerebrospinal fluid tapers off during sleep and spikes when awake or sleep-deprived. They report the same for mouse interstitial fluid—and just like with Aβ, tau release from neurons depended on excitatory neuronal activity, and sleep deprivation hastened the spread of tau aggregates in mice. “The data suggest that wakefulness regulates normal and probably pathologic tau release. We need to better understand the process that allows tau to get out of cells, and how that might affect tauopathies,” Holtzman told Alzforum.