Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Behavior Disorder and Neurodegenerative Diseases: An Update

Feng Zhang; Long Niu; Xinyao Liu; Yufei Liu; Song Li; Huan Yu; Weidong Le

doi:10.14336/AD.2019.0324

Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Behavior Disorder and Neurodegenerative Diseases: An Update

Aging Dis. 2020 Mar 9;11(2):315-326. doi: 10.14336/AD.2019.0324. eCollection 2020 Apr.

Authors

Feng Zhang^{1

2}, Long Niu^{1

2}, Xinyao Liu^{1

2}, Yufei Liu^{1

2}, Song Li^{1

2}, Huan Yu³, Weidong Le^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ 1Center for Clinical Research on Neurological Diseases, the First Affiliated Hospital, Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China.
² 2Liaoning Provincial Key Laboratory for Research on the Pathogenic Mechanisms of Neurological Diseases, the First Affiliated Hospital, Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China.
³ 3Sleep and Wake Disorders Center and Department of Neurology, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is a sleep behavior disorder characterized by abnormal behaviors and loss of muscle atonia during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. RBD is generally considered to be associated with synucleinopathies, such as Parkinson's disease (PD), dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), and multiple system atrophy (MSA), and usually precedes years before the first symptom of these diseases. It is believed that RBD predicts the neurodegeneration in synucleinopathy. However, increasing evidences have shown that RBD is also found in non-synucleinopathy neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease (AD), Huntington's disease (HD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), etc. Sleep disturbance such as RBD may be an early sign of neurodegeneration in these diseases, and also serve as an assessment of cognitive impairments. In this review, we updated the clinical characteristics, diagnosis, and possible mechanisms of RBD in neurogenerative diseases. A better understanding of RBD in these neurogenerative diseases will provide biomarkers and novel therapeutics for the early diagnosis and treatment of the diseases.

Keywords: dementia; neurodegeneration; rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder; synucleinopathy.

Publication types

Review