Impact of sleep apnea and its treatment on memory and tau accumulation in the brain
MPI: Andrew W. Varga, MD, PhD
Funding Source: NIH National Institute on Aging | 2020
This project aims to examine the longitudinal impact of OSA severity on tau accumulation in the brain by PET imaging as well as on change in spatial navigational memory over 2.5 years. This study additionally aims to investigate the impact of acute treatment of newly diagnosed OSA with PAP in tau levels in the cerebrospinal fluid over 8 weeks.
Role: MPI
Locus-coeruleus (LC) function in normal elderly and AD risk, the LEAD study
PI: Ricardo M. Osorio Suarez, MD
Co-I: Andrew W. Varga, MD, PhD
Funding Source: NIH National Institute on Aging | 2020
This study aims to evaluate associations between uptake of a novel PET tracer for a norepinephrine transporter (NET) in the locus coeruleus and 1) levels of tau in the cerebrospinal fluid, 2) measures of sleep fragmentation and 3) performance on psychomotor vigilance and Oddball attentional tasks in 30 cognitively normal older adults.
Role: Subcontract PI
Role of Slow Waves and Sleep Apnea in Memory and Risk for Alzheimer’s Disease
PI: Andrew W. Varga, MD, PhD
Funding Source: NIH National Institute on Aging | 2017
This study evaluates the role of SWS in memory and CSF AD biomarkers by withdrawing CPAP in OSA in a stage specific model of sleep disruption and also evaluate the influence of sleep fragmentation and intermittent hypoxia on these outcomes.
Brain Circuit Mechanisms in Sleep Stage Specific Processing of Memory
PI: Andrew W. Varga, MD, PhD
Funding Source: NIH National Institute on Aging | 2018
In this project, we measure patterns of brain activity during a spatial navigation task using fMRI before and after sleep when sleep is normally consolidated, when only slow wave sleep is disrupted, or when only REM sleep is disrupted in 18 subjects free of sleep disorders.
Effect of Chronic Sleep Disruption on Brain Tau Phosphorylation and Spread
PI: Andrew W. Varga, MD, PhD
Funding Source: Alzheimer’s Association | 2018
This project evaluates the time course and targets of tau spread from the locus coeruleus (LC) in mice expressing tau prone to aggregation exclusively in LC neurons and examine the impact of chronic sleep disruption on this process.
Effect of DORA-12 on tau pathology and spatial/motor impairment in a mouse model of tauopathy
PI: Andrew W. Varga, MD, PhD
Funding Source: Merck | 2019
This project evaluates the impact of chronic administration of the dual orexin receptor antagonist DORA-12 on sleep architecture, learning and memory processes, and progression of tau pathology in a mouse model of tauopathy.
Sleep Aging and Risk for Alzheimer’s Disease
PI: Ricardo M. Osorio Suarez, MD
Co-I: Andrew W. Varga, MD, PhD
Funding Source: NIH National Institute on Aging | 2018
In this study, we extend our prior work in our well-characterized longitudinal cohort of cognitively normal older adults with home and in-lab sleep monitoring, by including 4 more years of follow-up with neuroimaging and cerebrospinal fluid collection.
Slow Wave Sleep and the Effect of African Ancestry on Amyloid Burden: A Longitudinal Study
PI: Ricardo M. Osorio Suarez, MD
Co-I: Andrew W. Varga, MD, PhD
Funding Source: NIH National Institute on Aging | 2018
Our goal is to test whether sleep disturbances, which are more common among African-Americans when compared to whites, are one of the factors that explain the increases in amyloid burden that have been described in the literature and observed in our preliminary studies.
Lighting as an Intervention to Improve Sleep Outcomes and Safety for Hospitalized Patients: A Pilot Study
PI: Andrew Dunn, MD
Co-I: Andrew W. Varga, MD, PhD
Funding Source: McClung Foundation | 2018
This study evaluates the effect of a novel lighting intervention that augments blue spectrum light in the morning and inhibits blue spectrum light in the evening in hospitalized inpatients on sleep/wake regulation and clinical outcomes including use of sleep and pain medicines.