Do Older Adults Need Sleep? A Review of Neuroimaging, Sleep, and Aging Studies

Sleep habits, sleep physiology, and sleep disorders change with increasing age. However, there is a longstanding debate regarding whether older adults need sleep to maintain health and daily functioning (reduced-sleep-need view). An alternative possibility is that aging reduces the ability to obtain restorative sleep (reduced-sleep-ability view). Prior research using behavioral and polysomnography outcomes has not definitively disentangled the...