Mentor Areas
- Sleep disruption induces neural injury
- Sleep and Alzheimer's research
- In vivo calcium imaging
- High resolution synapse microscopy
- Confocal microscopy
- Thinking like a scientist
Description:
Dr. Veasey’s laboratory focuses on identifying the molecular mechanisms underlying neural injury in sleep disorders and sleep disruption. The present focus of her lab is understanding the molecular mechanisms by which sleep disruption injures and even kills select neurons. Previously sleep researchers believed that all neurobehavioral consequences of sleep loss were fully reversible. Dr. Veasey's lab has led the way in discovering that chronic short sleep and sleep fragmentation induce loss of wake-activated neurons, neurons essential for alertness and optimal cognitive performance. Most recently her lab has discovered that chronic short sleep and chronic sleep fragmentation in young adult mice result in significant injury to the hippocampus, manifesting in part as impairments in spatial memory, loss of hippocampal CA1 neurons, loss of CA1 volume and increased gliosis. Her lab now seeks to identify mechanisms of injury so that therapeutics may be developed to prevent or reverse neural injury. Her team has identified several potential mediators, including amyloid, disturbances in cytosolic calcium and activation of cofilin, and the lab is now critically testing the roles of each of these potential factors in sleep disruption neural injury.
Preferred Qualifications
Dr. Veasey welcomes all inquisitive students with some background in biology, biochemistry and or neuroscience.
Details:
Preferred Student Year
Second-Year, Junior, Senior
Academic Term
Fall, Spring, Summer
I prefer to have students start during the above term(s).Volunteer
No
Yes indicates that faculty are open to volunteers.Paid
Yes
Yes indicates that faculty are open to paying students they engage in their research, regardless of their work-study eligibility.Work Study
Yes
Yes indicates that faculty are open to hiring work-study-eligible students.