Abnormalities in Cutaneous Microcirculation in Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease, Mild Cognitive Impairment, and Chronic Insomnia Disorder

Impaired sympathetic response is frequently observed in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD). On the other hand, chronic insomnia disorder (CID) is also often accompanied by activation of sympathetic nerves. Considering that cutaneous microcirculation reflects sympathetic tone, we hypothesized that baseline cutaneous microcirculation in fingers, as detected by laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF), differs among patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), AD, and CID. As light therapy is one of the adjunctive treatments for AD and CID, we designed a randomized controlled cross-over trial of light therapy through eyes for 12 weeks with red light as treatment and green light as control limb, and examined if light therapy has an impact on cutaneous microcirculation. Before light therapy, patients with AD had significantly lower baseline cutaneous perfusion than those with CID in left and right first to fourth fingers. After red light therapy, however, cutaneous perfusion of fingers in CID patients significantly decreased (right fingers, before vs. after = 227.25 ± 62.00 vs. 162.00 ± 49.34, p = 0.007; left fingers, before vs. after = 228.99 ± 58.80 vs. 177.41 ± 59.41, p = 0.003) while cutaneous perfusion of fingers in CID patients did not significantly change after green light therapy. Light therapy with red light also significantly increased cutaneous finger perfusion in patients with AD (right fingers, before vs. after = 130.13 ± 49.82 vs. 172.38 ± 38.32, p = 0.043). Our results suggest that cutaneous perfusion is a useful tool to detect sympathetic dysfunction in patients with CID and AD, and that light therapy with red light is a potential therapeutic intervention to reverse impaired sympathetic function in patients with CID and patients with AD.