You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Maddie Sify here with NPR Science Correspondent John Hamilton.

Hi John.

Hi.

So you are our in-house brain person.

I do have a brain and on a good day it even works.

Okay, so you're here to talk to us about this puzzle that researchers have been trying

to figure out about the connection between sleep and Alzheimer's disease.

Exactly.

So decades ago, scientists noticed that people with Alzheimer's often have sleep problems.

They're awake more at night, they're often drowsy during the day.

And the big question has been, does it work the other way?

So do problems with sleep set the stage for Alzheimer's?

Right.

Scientists have been trying to figure out how this could happen for most of a decade now.

And just recently they managed to add another piece to the puzzle.

But to understand what they found, we need to dive into the mysteries of sleep and how

it affects the health of our brain.

So today on the show, the connection between Alzheimer's and sleep cannot be used.

Not getting enough sleep, make the brain more vulnerable to this degenerative disease.

And how sleep turns on this sort of dishwasher in the brain.

Okay, John.

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