Sleep and Inflammatory Systems Laboratory

Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Director: Janet Mullington, PhD
Department Chair: Clifford Saper, MD, PhD

Research Unit Website

Sleep and Inflammatory Systems Laboratory Group — From Left to Right: Monika Haack, Michael R. Goldstein, Larissa Engert, Huan Yang, Janet Mullington

Overview

The Sleep and Inflammatory Systems Laboratory at BIDMC is an international leader in conducting research on the biological basis for the effects of sleep disturbance and deficiency. We utilize intensive physiological monitoring and testing in experimental models of repeated sleep restriction/disturbance and recovery, sleep extension, and naturalistic observation in both healthy adults and patient populations including insomnia and hypertension.

Current Research Projects

Patterns of sleep restriction and recovery: The inflammatory resolution pathways

The goal of this project is to investigate whether the newly discovered inflammatory resolution pathways are affected by sleep restriction and responsible for slow and/or incomplete inflammatory recovery from sleep restriction.

NIH/NHLBI R01 HL136310 [PI Monika Haack] 04/15/2018-04/14/2023

Mechanisms underlying the blood pressure lowering effect of sleep extension

The goal of the study is to look at the non-pharmalogical intervention of sleep extension and sleep timing and their blood pressure lowering effects. We hypothesize that chronic sleep deficiency is causally related to the development of hypertension and cardiovascular disease via effects on the mechanisms supporting autonomic homeostatic control.We hypothesize further, that correcting sleep deficiency will improve autonomic regulatory control and thereby result in lower BP in hypertensive and pre-hypertensive individuals.

NIH/NHLBI R01 HL125379 [PI Janet Mullington] 08/19/2016-06/30/2021