Huge thanks to my co-authors, mentors, funders, and participants! @sleepdiplomat.bsky.social, @xichen.bsky.social, Bill Jagust, Yo-El Ju, James Westphal, Chelsea Brown, Vyoma D. Shah, Jason Dude.

We can see tau and lonely waves rising together over time. What we can't yet say is which leads — and that question will shape how we proceed.

Independent support: with Yo-El Ju at WashU, in a separate cohort, people with more solitary slow waves had higher CSF tau/amyloid ratios. Different measure, different sample, same pattern.

In 20-somethings, these waves swept about a handspan across the scalp. In adults in their 60s and 70s, they traveled shorter distances and stayed solitary - lonely waves. More frontal tau, more lonely waves,less overnight memory retention, cross-sectionally and years later.

💡 Each slow wave is an enormous population of neurons switching off and back on together, cascading in sequence across the cortex. That coordinated shutdown shows up only in deep sleep — and threfore may be part of why we sleep at all.