# A novel closed-loop feedback neuromodulation system for improving slow wave sleep in Alzheimer's disease patients

> **NIH NIH R43** · SYNAPTIC HEALTH LLC · 2024 · $499,386

## Abstract

Project Summary Abstract
 Sleep disturbances are a common facet of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) affecting 20-40% of
patients in the mild to moderate stage of the illness. There is strong evidence that poor sleep
accelerates the progress of AD through the failure to clear brian toxins during sleep. Research
has shown that promoting healthy sleep, specifically slow wave sleep (SWS), reversed the
accelerating impacts of disrupted sleep in AD patients and reduced their annual increases in AD
biomarkers, reduced cognitive decline, stabilized depressive symptoms, and improved
psychopathological behavior. There is increasing evidence that promoting sleep, specifically
healthy sleep architecture, reduces the risk of poor sleep accelerating AD. However, there are
currently no approved therapies that are specifically designed to promote sleep and healthy
sleep architecture in AD patients and patients at high risk for AD. Thus, there is a significant
unmet clinical need to develop a sleep promoting device that is well tolerated by pre-AD and
early-stage AD patients.
 Our innovation is a device that promotes sleep onset, sleep duration, and the ideal sleep
stage architecture including SWS, to prevent the disease accelerating impacts of disrupted
sleep on AD patients. The goal of this Phase I project is to create a testable prototype that can
sense sleep architecture and provide peripheral neuromodulation stimulation to individuals over
the age of 65, a group with an elevated risk of AD. Successful completion of this Phase I effort
will position us to demonstrate in clinical studies that our device improves SWS in early-stage
AD patients and reduces AD biomarkers. Our final commercialized device will be a comfortable
low-profile medical device that promotes healthy sleep in high-risk and early-stage AD patients
and reverses the accelerating effects of disrupted sleep for millions of AD patients.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10913009
- **Project number:** 1R43AG084379-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** SYNAPTIC HEALTH LLC
- **Principal Investigator:** Brian Krohn
- **Activity code:** R43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $499,386
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-09-25 → 2026-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10913009

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10913009, A novel closed-loop feedback neuromodulation system for improving slow wave sleep in Alzheimer's disease patients (1R43AG084379-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10913009. Licensed CC0.

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