REM Sleep Microstructure as a Window for Understanding the Neurobiology of Depression in Parkinson's Disease

Our proposal. As REM dysregulation is a key feature of depression, and depression could be an early manifestation of the neurodegenerative process in PD, testing early PD patients with depression provides an opportunity to address key, yet unresolved questions about the mechanisms linking depression and PD.

Here, we propose to test this unique patient population in a study that combine the expertise of PI Tauman in sleep microstructure and PI Wolpe in mental health and neurodegenerative conditions.

This new collaboration will allow us to combine cognitive neuroscience methods from PI's Wolpe's lab to examine reward sensitivity as a key marker in the pathogenesis of depression, while accounting for other neuropsychiatric symptoms common in PD.

These methods will be combined with PI Tauman's expertise in REM sleep microstructure. Our study will be the first, to our knowledge, to examine the relationship between REM sleep measures, depression, and PD.

Findings from our study will have broad implications, with REM sleep dysregulation as a potential marker for the neurodegenerative process that contributes to both PD and depression in PD.

REM sleep dysregulation could thereby become a candidate target for early interventions aiming to modify the progression of PD.