A majority of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) experience some form of sleep disruption, including nocturnal sleep fragmentation, increased daytime napping, decreased slow-wave sleep (SWS, stage N3), and decreased rapid-eye-movement sleep (REM). Clinical studies are investigating whether such sleep disturbances are a consequence of the underlying disease, and whether they also contribute to the clinical and pathological manifestations of AD. Emerging research has provided a direct link between several of these sleep disruptions and AD pathophysiology, suggesting that treating sleep disorders in this population may target basic mechanisms of the disease. Here, we provide a comprehensive review of sleep disturbances associated with the spectrum of AD, ranging from the preclinical stages through dementia. We discuss how sleep interacts with AD pathophysiology and, critically, whether sleep impairments can be targeted to modify the disease course in a subgroup of affected AD patients. Ultimately, larger studies that fully utilize new diagnostic and experimental tools will be required to better define the most relevant sleep disturbance to target in AD, the interventions that best modulate this target symptom, and whether successful early intervention can modify AD risk and prevent dementia.

大多数阿尔茨海默病 (AD) 患者都会经历某种形式的睡眠中断，包括夜间睡眠碎片化、白天小睡增加、慢波睡眠（SWS，N3 期）减少和快速眼动睡眠 (REM) 减少。临床研究正在调查此类睡眠障碍是否是潜在疾病的结果，以及它们是否也会导致 AD 的临床和病理表现。新兴研究提供了其中几种睡眠障碍与 AD 病理生理学之间的直接联系，表明治疗该人群的睡眠障碍可能会针对该疾病的基本机制。在这里，我们对与 AD 谱系相关的睡眠障碍进行了全面回顾，从临床前阶段到痴呆。我们讨论睡眠如何与 AD 病理生理学相互作用，更重要的是，是否可以通过睡眠障碍来改变受影响 AD 患者亚组的病程。最终，需要充分利用新的诊断和实验工具进行更大规模的研究，以更好地确定与 AD 目标最相关的睡眠障碍、最能调节该目标症状的干预措施，以及成功的早期干预是否可以降低 AD 风险并预防痴呆。