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Sleep is a fundamental process that supports cognitive function, brain health and development. Our lab is interested in understanding the molecular basis for the benefits of sleep and for the consequences of sleep disruption. We focus our research primarily on how sleep is able to modify neuronal synapses, believed to be part of the basis for the benefits of sleep on learning and memory. We are also working to understand and treat sleep disruption associated with neurodevelopmental disorders and neurodegenerative diseases, specifically autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) respectively. Our lab uses mouse models of ASD and AD in our research together with primary cultured neurons for in vitro mechanistic studies. We use mouse behavioral analysis, sleep studies in mice, pharmacology, sub-cellular fractionation, biochemistry and proteomics methods. We find that sleep disruption is present in our mouse disease models and that sleep disruption plays an important role in disease progression. We are now pursuing novel targets to treat sleep disruption with the long-term goal to develop next-generation sleep-based medicine.
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CLINICAL/RESEARCH INTERESTS:
Autism, Behavior, Biochemistry, Cell Signaling, Neurobiology, Pharmacology, Sleep |