Association of Sleep Variables With Cognitive Performance and the Risk of Dementia in the Sleep and Dementia…

ObservationalNeurology· Aug 2026

Association of Sleep Variables With Cognitive Performance and the Risk of Dementia in the Sleep and Dementia Consortium.

Stephanie Yiallourou, Crystal Wiedner, Qiong Yang … Jayandra Jung Himali

Cognitive & DementiaObservationalQ1IF 3.8

Greater sleep quantity and efficiency is associated with better global cognitive performance.

Association of Sleep Variables With Cognitive Performance and the Risk of Dementia in the Sleep and Dementia Consortium.

Stephanie Yiallourou … Jayandra Jung Himali

Neurology · Aug 2026 · Q1 in Neurology

Background

Sleep is multidimensional, and it remains unclear which aspects are most relevant to cognition and dementia risk.

Purpose

We aimed to apply a data-driven approach to identify clusters of sleep variables that reflect meaningful sleep composites and examined their association with cognition and dementia risk.

Methods

Aged ≥45 and ≥60 years were included in the cognitive and dementia analyses, respectively.

n = 5,958 participants

Results

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each unit of longer, more consolidated sleep was associated with a higher overall thinking ability

n = 5,958 participants

More results

The pooled cognitive analysis included 5,958 participants (mean ± SD age 70 ± 11 years, 32% female).

The incident dementia analysis included 5,471 participants (74 ± 12 years, 31% female).

More results

Nine sleep composites were identified, together explaining 49% of the total variance in the original 44 sleep metrics: Sleep quantity and efficiency, sleep fragmentation, light non-rapid eye movement (non-rapid eye movement) predominance, N3 predominance, spindle number and duration, REM sleep bouts, respiratory disturbances, slow oscillation-spindle coupling, and spindle amplitude.

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Conclusion

These composites may be useful in guiding further investigations of sleep-brain health relationships.

Association of Sleep Variables With Cognitive Performance and the Risk of Dementia in the Sleep and Dementia Consortium.

Association of Sleep Variables With Cognitive Performance and the Risk of Dementia in the Sleep and Dementia Consortium.

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