The researchers plan to use electroencephalography (EEG) to look at the biological reasons for dream changes. The study also shows that our dreams can reveal important information about our brain structure and function and may prove to be an important target for neuroscience research.
The results suggest that older adults who will one day be diagnosed with Parkinson’s are likely to begin experiencing bad dreams and nightmares a few years before developing the characteristic features of Parkinson’s, including tremors, stiffness and slowness of movement. Participants with frequent bad dreams during this period were more than three times as likely to go on to develop Parkinson’s. Most of the diagnoses happened in the first five years of the study.
Participants reporting bad dreams at least once per week were followed up at the end of the study to see whether they were more likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.ĭuring the follow-up period, 91 cases of Parkinson’s were diagnosed. The team used data from a large cohort study from the US, which contained data over a period of 12 years from 3,818 older men living independently.
