You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 9, Issue 6
  • Sleep-Cognition Hypothesis In maritime Pilots, what is the effect of long-term work-related poor sleep on cognition and amyloid accumulation in healthy middle-aged maritime pilots: methodology of a case–control study

Article Text

Article menu

Download PDFPDF

XML
Geriatric medicine
Protocol
Sleep-Cognition Hypothesis In maritime Pilots, what is the effect of long-term work-related poor sleep on cognition and amyloid accumulation in healthy middle-aged maritime pilots: methodology of a case–control study
  1. Jana Thomas1,2,3,
  2. Sharon Ooms1,2,3,
  3. Marcel Verbeek2,3,4,
  4. Jan Booij5,6,
  5. Mark Rijpkema6,
  6. Roy P C Kessels2,3,7,8,
  7. Sebastiaan Overeem9,10,
  8. Jurgen Claassen1,2,3
  1. 1 Geriatric Medicine, Radboudumc, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
  2. 2 Radboud Alzheimer Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
  3. 3 Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
  4. 4 Neurology, Radboudumc, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
  5. 5 Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  6. 6 Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Radboudumc, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
  7. 7 Vincent van Gogh Institute for Psychiatry, Venray, The Netherlands
  8. 8 Medical Psychology, Radboudumc, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
  9. 9 Eindhoven Medtech Innovation Center, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
  10. 10 Sleep Medicine Center Kempenhaeghe, Heeze, The Netherlands
  1. Correspondence to Miss Jana Thomas; jana.thomas{at}radboudumc.nl

Abstract

Introduction Evidence indicates a bidirectional relationship between poor sleep and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). While AD may lead to disruption of normal sleep, poor sleep in itself may play a causal role in the development of AD by influencing the production and/or clearance of the amyloid-beta (Aβ) protein. This led to the hypothesis that extended periods (>10 years) of sleep loss could lead to Aβ accumulation with subsequent cognitive AD-related decline. This manuscript describes the methodology of the SCHIP study, a cohort study in maritime pilots that aims at investigating the relationship between prolonged work-related sleep loss, cognitive function and amyloid accumulation among healthy middle-aged maritime pilots, to test the hypothesis that prolonged sleep loss increases the risk of AD-related cognitive decline.

Methods Our study sample consists of a group of healthy middle-aged maritime pilots (n=20), who have been exposed to highly irregular work schedules for more than 15 years. The maritime pilots will be compared to a group of healthy, age and education-matched controls (n=20) with normal sleep. Participants will complete 10 days of actigraphy (Actiwatch 2, Philips Respironics) combined with a sleep-wake diary. They will undergo one night of polysomnography, followed by comprehensive assessment of cognitive function. Additionally, participants will undergo amyloid positron emission tomography-CT to measure brain amyloid accumulation and MRI to investigate atrophy and vascular changes.

Analysis All analyses will be performed using IBM SPSS V.20.0 (SPSS). We will perform independent samples t-tests to compare all outcome parameters.

Ethics and dissemination The study protocol was approved by our institutional ethical review board (NL55712.091.16, file number 2016–2337) and will be performed according to Good Clinical Practice rules. Data and results will be published in 2020.

  • alzheimer’s disease
  • amyloid accumulation
  • neurodegeneration
  • cognitive function
  • sleep

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-026992

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors JT was involved in setting up the study, recruiting participants, gathering baseline characteristics, analysing of first data and writing this manuscript. SO helped with setting up the study, recruitment and design of the project and writing the first draft of the manuscript. MV contributed to the design of the study. JB and MR were major contributors in choosing and designing the right PET-CT/MRI procedure and wrote part of the manuscript. RPCK contributed to selecting the right neuropsychological tests, helped with the statistical analyses of the first data and contributed to the revision of this manuscript. SO was a major contributor in setting up a collaboration with the sleeping center Kempenhaeghe (Heeze, The Netherlands) and helped revising the manuscript. JC was a major contributor in obtaining funding, setting up the study, designing the project and was extensively involved in writing and revising the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

    • Funding The SCHIP study is funded by ISAO (Internationale Stichting Alzheimer Onderzoek) (grant number 15040). Additional financial resources were provided by the Radboud University Medical Center (Nijmegen, The Netherlands).

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Ethics approval The study protocol was approved by our institutional review board (NL55712.091.16, file number 2016–2337) and will be performed according to Good Clinical Practice (GCP) rules.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.