Research Project: Sleep enhancement: a strategy to improve cognitive performance in adult and Alzheimer’s disease mouse models
The CART Fund will award Christelle Anaclet, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts Medical School, the top 2017 Alzheimer’s research grant in the amount of $250,000. The grant will be awarded on May 9, 2017 at the Annual meeting of The CART Fund in Columbia, SC.
Our goal is to reduce the burden of Alzheimer’s disease. Cognitive impairment and sleep disruption represent two of the most disabling symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and are the primary bases for institutionalization. Given that sleep disruption is known to cause cognitive deficits in the healthy individual, we hypothesize that increased sleep quantity and quality can improve cognitive function and reverse the cognitive deficits associated with Alzheimer’s disease. I have developed a mouse model of sleep enhancement permitting my laboratory to test, for the first time, whether sleep enhancement can improve cognitive function in cognitively impaired as well as un-impaired mice.
This project proposes to define the role of sleep in cognitive function, test whether or not increased sleep quality can improve cognition in the mouse, and develop newer mouse models to study sleep, cognition and Alzheimer’s disease. Successful completion of the aims will show that slow-wave-sleep (SWS) enhancement and rapid eye movement sleep (REMS) have different and complementary effects on cognitive function.
In addition, we expect to show that SWS and REMS can be qualitatively and quantitatively “enhanced” in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease. These results will provide critical proof of concept for follow-on work that will study the effect of sleep enhancement on cognitive functions in Alzheimer’s disease mouse models.
The Coins for Alzheimer’s Research Trust Fund (CART) is a project of the Rotary Clubs of North America. Founded in 1995 in Sumter SC, CART provides financial support for Alzheimer’s research projects that are yet to be supported by extensive preliminary data but have the potential to substantially advance biomedical research. Learn more at www.cartfund.org