BACKGROUND The incidence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) has been increasing in recent years. Sleep loss and circadian rhythm abnormalities are thought to be one of the underlying causes of adverse metabolic health. However, little is known about sleep-wake cycle irregularities in T2DM. The present study compared the bedtime, waking time, and estimated sleep duration between T2DM and non-T2D...

It is assumed that synaptic strengthening and weakening balance throughout learning to avoid runaway potentiation and memory interference. However, energetic and informational considerations suggest that potentiation should occur primarily during wake, when animals learn, and depression should occur during sleep. We measured 6920 synapses in mouse motor and sensory cortices using three-dimensio...

Myotonic dystrophy is the most common type of muscular dystrophy in adults and is characterized by progressive myopathy, myotonia, and multiorgan involvement. Two genetically distinct entities have been identified, myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1 or Steinert's Disease) and myotonic dystrophy type 2 (DM2). Myotonic dystrophies are strongly associated with sleep dysfunction. Sleep disturbances in ...

Sleep is critical for hippocampus-dependent memory consolidation. However, the underlying mechanisms of synaptic plasticity are poorly understood. The central controversy is on whether long-term potentiation (LTP) takes a role during sleep and which would be its specific effect on memory. To address this question, we used immunohistochemistry to measure phosphorylation of Ca2+/calmodulin-depend...

BACKGROUND Scale-invariant neuronal avalanches have been observed in cell cultures and slices as well as anesthetized and awake brains, suggesting that the brain operates near criticality, i.e. within a narrow margin between avalanche propagation and extinction. In theory, criticality provides many desirable features for the behaving brain, optimizing computational capabilities, information tra...

The aim of this study was to assess the relative influence on the 24-h aldosterone profile of the adrenocorticotropic system, primarily modulated by a circadian rhythmicity, and the renin-angiotensin system, which is influenced by sleep. Cortisol, plasma renin activity (PRA), and aldosterone were measured for 24 h in healthy subjects under basal conditions, once with nocturnal sleep and once wi...

70 A 22-year-old male with autism presents for follow-up of his severe obstructive sleep apnea (apnea-hypopnea index 50/hour). He is currently on continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy at 8 cm H2O. Patient admits that he does not wear the CPAP every night. According to his mother, he has poor sleep habits, frequently going to bed after midnight and getting up late in the morning, bu...

To Mom, Dad and my husband: without your support, I wouldn't be here iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge Dr. Eberhard O. Voit, my advisor and mentor, for his invaluable guidance in my research. It would have been impossible for me to touch such an interesting research field and come this far without his willingness to give me a chance at the very beginning. I would also wish to than...

Disturbances of the daily sleep/wake cycle are common non-motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD). However, the impact of dopamine (DA) depletion on circadian rhythms in PD patients or non-human primate (NHP) models of the disorder have not been investigated. We evaluated alterations of circadian rhythms in NHP following MPTP lesion of the dopaminergic nigro-striatal system. DA degeneration ...