# Cold-raising unmasks sleep disruption in a Drosophila  Alzheimer’s disease model

**Authors:** Ananya Nair, Allison J. Yearwood, Brandi N. Besednjak, Mikayla M. Cully, Reece Turner, Joseph L. Bedont

PMC · DOI: 10.17912/micropub.biology.001689 · 2025-06-19

## TL;DR

Raising fruit flies in cold temperatures reveals sleep problems in a model of Alzheimer's disease, offering a new way to study the link between sleep and the disease.

## Contribution

Cold-raising reveals sleep deficits in a Drosophila Alzheimer's model, enabling new studies on sleep-AD interactions.

## Key findings

- Cold-raising unmasks sleep duration deficits in a Drosophila Alzheimer's model.
- Sleep fragmentation and latency are also increased in the cold-raised model.
- The model can be used to study metabolic and proteostatic links between sleep and AD.

## Abstract

Chronic sleep loss is a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD), and reduced and fragmented sleep is increasingly appreciated as an early-onset diagnostic and potential therapeutic target for AD. However, robustly modeling AD-like sleep deficits in fruit flies has often been challenging. We report that cold-raising unmasks deficits in sleep duration, fragmentation, and latency in one such model pan-neuronally expressing a highly pathogenic AD-associated amyloid species. This sensitized model provides a promising platform for identifying potential metabolic, proteostatic, glymphatic, and other candidate mediators bidirectionally linking sleep and AD.

## Linked entities

- **Diseases:** Alzheimer's disease (MONDO:0004975)
- **Species:** Drosophila (taxon 7215)

## Full-text entities

- **Diseases:** AD (MESH:D000544), sleep disruption (MESH:D019958), sleep deficits (MESH:D012893)
- **Species:** Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly, species) [taxon 7227]

## Figures

1 figure with captions in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12231311/full.md

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12231311