Our Research Programs
| UW Psychiatry has a rich and varied research program that includes sleep, affect, stress, anxiety, schizophrenia, consciousness, and emotions. Among our noted researchers is Professor Chiara Cirelli, MD, PhD. Dr. Chirelli recently authored a review on Brain Plasticity, Sleep and Aging, which will be published in the journal Gerontology. |  |
ABSTRACT: The link between sleep and aging is a hot topic of research. On the one hand, much attention has been paid to epidemiological studies showing that both short sleep and long sleep in humans are associated with reduced longevity. I will briefly review this literature and discuss recent experiments in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster that may contribute to understanding this complicated association. On the other hand, other experiments have focused on age-related sleep changes. Sleep quantity and quality tend to decrease with age, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. In young subjects, converging evidence from human and animal studies shows that the need for sleep is strongly modulated by the amount of brain plasticity during prior wake. In short, the more we learn and adapt our brain to an ever-changing environment, the more we need to sleep. If so, poor sleep in the elderly could be caused by a chronic decrease in sleep need due to reduced opportunity to learn and be exposed to novel experiences, rather than, or in addition to, an intrinsic problem in the neural circuits responsible for sleep regulation. This distinction has obvious practical implications. However, very little research has been done on this topic.
New Publications
Johnson JS, Kundu B, Casali AG, Postle BR.Task-dependent changes in cortical excitability and effective connectivity: A combined TMS-EEG study. J Neurophysiol. 2012 Feb 8. [Epub ahead of print]
Huber R, Mäki H, Rosanova M, Casarotto S, Canali P, Casali AG, Tononi G, Massimini M. Human Cortical Excitability Increases with Time Awake. Cereb Cortex. 2012 Feb 7. [Epub ahead of print]
Golden RN. UW Tobacco Research and Intervention Center making a difference. WMJ.2011 Dec;110(6):299-300.
Plante DT, Jensen JE, Schoerning L, Winkelman JW. Reduced γ-Aminobutyric Acid in Occipital and Anterior Cingulate Cortices in Primary Insomnia: a Link to Major Depressive Disorder? Neuropsychopharmacology. 2012 Feb 8. [Epub ahead of print]
Rovin ML, Boss-Williams KA, Alisch RS, Ritchie JC, Weinshenker D, West CH, Weiss JM. Influence of chronic administration of antidepressant drugs on mRNA for galanin, galanin receptors, and tyrosine hydroxylase in catecholaminergic and serotonergic cell-body regions in rat brain. Neuropeptides. 2012 Feb 6. [Epub ahead of print]
Sanders RD, Tononi G, Laureys S, Sleigh J.Unresponsiveness ≠ Unconsciousness. Anesthesiology. 2012 Feb 6. [Epub ahead of print]
Alisch RS, Barwick BG, Chopra P, Myrick LK, Satten GA, Conneely KN, Warren ST.Age-associated DNA methylation in pediatric populations. Genome Res. 2012 Feb 1. [Epub ahead of print]
Morin CM, Benca R. Chronic insomnia. Lancet. 2012 Jan 19. [Epub ahead of print]
Birn RM.The role of physiological noise in resting-state functional connectivity. Neuroimage. 2012 Jan 8. [Epub ahead of print]
Ries ML, McLaren DG, Bendlin BB, Guofanxu, Rowley HA, Birn R, Kastman EK, Sager MA, Asthana S, Johnson SC. Medial prefrontal functional connectivity-Relation to memory self-appraisal accuracy in older adults with and without memory disorders. Neuropsychologia. 2012 Jan 2.
Meier TB, Desphande AS, Vergun S, Nair VA, Song J, Biswal BB, Meyerand ME, Birn RM, Prabhakaran V. Support vector machine classification and characterization of age-related reorganization of functional brain networks. Neuroimage. 2011 Dec 28;60(1):601-613. [Epub ahead of print]
Rosanova M, Gosseries O, Casarotto S, Boly M, Casali AG, Bruno MA, Mariotti M, Boveroux P, Tononi G, Laureys S, Massimini M. Recovery of cortical effective connectivity and recovery of consciousness in vegetative patients. Brain. 2012 Jan 6.[Epub ahead of print]
Prabhakaran V, Arges CG, Ramani V. Investigation of polymer electrolyte membrane chemical degradation and degradation mitigation using in situ fluorescence spectroscopy. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Jan 24;109(4):1029-34. [Epub ahead of print]
Andrillon T, Nir Y, Staba RJ, Ferrarelli F, Cirelli C, Tononi G, Fried I. Sleep spindles in humans: insights from intracranial EEG and unit recordings. J Neurosci. 2011 Dec 7;31(49):17821-34.
Hurley SA, Yarnykh VL, Johnson KM, Field AS, Alexander AL, Samsonov AA. Simultaneous variable flip angle-actual flip angle imaging method for improved accuracy and precision of three-dimensional T(1) and B(1) measurements. Magn Reson Med. 2011 Dec 2. [Epub ahead of print]
MacCoon DG, Imel ZE, Rosenkranz MA, Sheftel JG, Weng HY, Sullivan JC, Bonus KA, Stoney CM, Salomons TV, Davidson RJ, Lutz A. The validation of an active control intervention for Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). Behav Res Ther. 2012 Jan;50(1):3-12.
Billings ME, Auckley D, Benca R, Foldvary-Schaefer N, Iber C, Redline S, Rosen CL, Zee P, Kapur VK. Race and residential socioeconomics as predictors of CPAP adherence . Sleep. 2011 Dec 1;34(12):1653-8.
Reardon CL, Ogring G, Walaszek A. A Didactic and Experiential Quality Improvement Curriculum for Psychiatry Residents. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, Dec 2011: 562-565