Sleep, selective-attention and memory consolidation are adversely impacted by many, if not most, neurological conditions. Interestingly, recent studies suggest that neuronal activity during waking may alter the risk for developing Alzheimer's disease. With this in mind, we have identified a genetically-tractable neural circuit that is impacted by Alzheimer's disease and is also uniquely suited for dissecting the dynamic, bi-directional relationship between sleep and cognition. That is, we are less interested in defining a minimal set of neurons that control a behavior than we are in understanding how these neurons interact (e.g., via a sleep- cognitive connectome). In this proposal we will investigate how connected structures in the fly brain work together to regulate sleep and cognition during health and in the context of Alzheimer's disease. Since we have recently demonstrated that the power of sleep can be harnessed to reverse cognitive impairments in a Drosophila model of Alzheimer's disease, a goal of this proposal will be to define the functional properties of circuits that confer the benefits of sleep to cognitive processes.

Public Health Relevance

Our data suggest that it may be possible to harness the power of sleep to help restore cognition to humans that suffer from a variety of debilitating neurologic diseases. We propose to better understand the relationship between sleep and cognition by defining a functional- sleep connectome consisting of interacting subsets of cells that regulate sleep, attention and memory.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01NS076980-10
Application #
9921498
Study Section
Molecular Neurogenetics Study Section (MNG)
Program Officer
He, Janet
Project Start
2011-09-01
Project End
2021-05-31
Budget Start
2020-06-01
Budget End
2021-05-31
Support Year
10
Fiscal Year
2020
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Washington University
Department
Neurosciences
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
068552207
City
Saint Louis
State
MO
Country
United States
Zip Code
63130
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Troup, Michael; Yap, Melvyn Hw; Rohrscheib, Chelsie et al. (2018) Acute control of the sleep switch in Drosophila reveals a role for gap junctions in regulating behavioral responsiveness. Elife 7:
Sitaraman, Divya; Kramer, Elizabeth F; Kahsai, Lily et al. (2017) Discrete Serotonin Systems Mediate Memory Enhancement and Escape Latencies after Unpredicted Aversive Experience in Drosophila Place Memory. Front Syst Neurosci 11:92
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Dissel, Stephane; Klose, Markus; Donlea, Jeff et al. (2017) Enhanced sleep reverses memory deficits and underlying pathology in Drosophila models of Alzheimer's disease. Neurobiol Sleep Circadian Rhythms 2:15-26
LaFerriere, Holly; Zars, Troy (2017) The Drosophila melanogaster tribbles pseudokinase is necessary for proper memory formation. Neurobiol Learn Mem 144:68-76
Seugnet, Laurent; Dissel, Stephane; Thimgan, Matthew et al. (2017) Identification of Genes that Maintain Behavioral and Structural Plasticity during Sleep Loss. Front Neural Circuits 11:79
Dissel, Stephane; Seugnet, Laurent; Thimgan, Matthew S et al. (2015) Differential activation of immune factors in neurons and glia contribute to individual differences in resilience/vulnerability to sleep disruption. Brain Behav Immun 47:75-85
Dissel, Stephane; Melnattur, Krishna; Shaw, Paul J (2015) Sleep, Performance, and Memory in Flies. Curr Sleep Med Rep 1:47-54

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