The following individuals comprise the Faculty for the National Multi-Site Training Program for Basic Sleep Research. Brief summaries of their training and scientific interests are listed below under headings which describe their respective areas of expertise.
Michael H. Chase, Ph.D.
Professor of Physiology
University of California, Los Angeles
Dr. Chase has been trained in basic neurophysiological techniques and has concentrated his research on an analysis of the state-dependent vagal, cortical, and reticular control of motor processes in neonatal, adult, and aged cats. His laboratory has developed techniques to obtain precise measurements of motor activity by recording from spinal cord and brainstem motoneurons in chronic, unanesthetized cats during sleep and wakefulness. He has also perfected a combined intracellular recording and multibarreled extracellular/intracellular micropipette assembly to iontophoretically eject substances onto the surfaces and within cells from which intracellular records are being obtained in chronic cats during naturally occurring states of sleep and wakefulness. He is able to provide training in these techniques to participants in the Training Program, and a research experience in the study of motoneuron activity and its state-dependent control by brainstem structures. Dr. Chase recently received a Jacob K. Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award from the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke in recognition of his research endeavors.
William C. Dement, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Psychiatry ry and Behavioral Sciences
Stanford University
Palo Alto, California
Dr. Dement participated in sleep studies in 1950 with Drs. Nathaniel Kleitman and Eugene Aserinsky, and together they discovered and described rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. During the period 1954 to 1957, Dr. Dement described the relationship between REM sleep and dreaming, all-night sleep patterns in human beings, and discovered REM sleep in animals and newborn babies. From 1958 to 1962, Dr. Dement studied the effect of both sleep and REM deprivation in humans at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital and initiated studies of motor inhibition during sleep with Dr. Roben Hodes. Dr. Dement's research at Stanford from 1972 to 1986 has included studies on narcolepsy (using narcoleptic dogs, the world's only animal model for this disorder), circadian rhythms (using mice as the primary model), sleep apnea (using elderly cats), insomnia (focusing on sleep medications and the study of jet lag), daytime sleepiness (aided by the development of the Multiple Sleep Latency Test in conjunction with Mary Carskadon) and basic sleep hygiene. In the coming years, the Stanford laboratories will continue neurochemical, neuroimmunological, immunogenetic, and molecular biological work on sleep and circadian processes.
Ronald M. Harper, Ph.D.
Professor of Anatomy
University of California, Los Angeles
Dr. Harper has been trained in behavioral, electrophysiological, and computer techniques, and has studied forebrain mechanisms underlying the control of cardiovascular activity during sleep and waking states. His interests include the normal and pathological modulation of cardiac and respiratory action in humans, specifically, the development of state-related cardiac and respiratory control in normal infants and infants at risk for the sudden infant death syndrome, the adult obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, and patients with complex partial seizures. Dr. Harper has developed procedures for recording single neuron discharge in drug-free, freely moving animal preparations and for describing the statistical properties of single neurons and simultaneously recorded multiple spike trains. He has examined the activity of neurons in several forebrain sites which discharge in phase with the respiratory and cardiac cycle, and has characterized the relationships between these forebrain sites and cardiorespiratory brainstem regions. He is able to provide training in chronic cellular, respiratory, and cardiovascular recording procedures, and in statistical procedures for evaluating neuronal spike train interactions of respiratory and autonomic activity.
Robert W. McCarley, M.D.
Professor of Psychiatry
Harvard University
Boston, Massachusetts
Dr. McCarley has been trained in basic neurophysiological and quantitative techniques and has focused his research on the analysis of brainstem mechanisms important in sleep cycle control (using intracellular recordings in the cat, in vivo, and the in vitro rat brainstem), and on mathematical modeling of the REM sleep rhythm. His laboratory uses intracellular recordings of pontine reticular formation and other brainstem neurons in the chronic, unanesthetized cat during sleep and wakefulness to identify membrane potential and excitability changes during the sleep cycle and to identify neurons and their connectivity through microstimulation techniques and through the intracellular injection of HRP and the tracing of axonal projections. The basic neurophysiological mechanisms underlying state-related changes are investigated in the in vitro rat pontine brainstem slice; in the slice preparation, voltage and current clamping of individual neurons together with alterations of the ionic and pharmacological composition of the bathing medium allow determination of the type and kinetics of transmitter and voltagecontrolled ionic channels. Mathematical techniques are used to model both the overall REM rhythm and the more basic cellular mechanisms. Dr. McCarley is able to provide training in these techniques to Program participants and will offer the opportunity of a research experience in these areas.
Dennis McGinty, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
University of California, Los Angeles
Dr. McGinty developed a chronic unit recording technique to analyze the activity of brainstem serotoninergic, noradrenergic, and pontine and medullary reticular formation neuronal discharge in the control of sleep states in unrestrained cats. This method has been adopted by laboratories throughout the world and has predominated in studies of brainstem neuronal mechanisms of REM in the last ten years. He is currently studying neurons in the basal forebrain which exhibit selective activity in sleep and which are possible mediators of forebrain hypnogenic functions. He is applying a variety of neurophysiological and histological techniques to this problem. He has also worked on the modulation of brainstem respiratory neurons during sleep and the development of sleep.
Dr. Morales received his B.S. from the Instituto A. Vasquez Acevedo, Montevideo, Uruguay in 1963 and a medical degree from the University of the Republic, Montevideo in 1975. He then became an Assistant Professor of Neuropharmacology and Neurophysiology in the School of Medicine, University of the Republic, Montevideo. His current interests are in the study of the control of spinal cord motoneurons during sleep and wakefulness. He utilizes electrophysiological techniques to investigate, in chronic cats, the intracellularly recorded membrane potential of motoneurons and neuropharmacological techniques to identify and examine the responsible neurotransmitters. These investigations are performed by employing a combined multi-barreled recording and iontophoretic (for drug ejection) micropipette. He also utilizes these techniques in cats that have received carbachol microinjections into the brainstem in order to study the cholinergic control of motoneurons during the state of active sleep.
Adrian R. Morrison, D.V.M, Ph.D.
Professor of Anatomy
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Dr. Morrison has been trained in neuroanatomical, neurophysiological and clinical neurological techniques and has concentrated his research on the brainstem mechanisms regulating motor inhibition, arousal and thermoregulation during sleep and wakefulness in cats. He has employed selective lesions, behavioral observations, and microwire single-unit recording to study a unique phenomenon, REM sleep without atonia, which has led to a fuller understanding of the brainstem control of spinal motor inhibition during REM sleep and the physiological nature of REM sleep itself. Because of his unique position as a veterinarian in a veterinary school associated with a leading medical center, he has been able to foster the development of animal models of sleep disorders by his former students and clinical colleagues. Thus, trainees will be able to encounter the full gamut of sleep research under his direction, although the major emphasis will be on basic neurophysiological investigations in his own laboratory.
Allan Rechtschaffen, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
University of Chicago, Illinois
Dr. Rechtschaffen was originally trained in experimental and clinical psychology. He has been doing experimental, psychophysiological, and physiological sleep research for the past 29 years, using humans, cats, rats, and reptiles. Subject matter has included: stimulus determinants and physiological correlates of dreaming; sleep pathology; physiology and neurochemistry of sleep; phylogeny of sleep; and circadian rhythms. His current research is devoted almost entirely to the function of sleep. Dr. Rechtschaffen's laboratory has developed an experimental paradigm whereby rats can be deprived of sleep or REM sleep by gentle stimulation, while yoked control rats given the same physical stimulation have nearly normal amounts of sleep. These controls stay healthy, while deprived rats suffer diverse pathology, markedly increased metabolic rates, and death. Dr. Rechtschaffen has directed 21 doctoral dissertations on sleep. He can provide training in sleep deprivation, acquisition and automatic scoring of physiological data, and manuscript preparation, as well as a broad perspective on how current student research relates to the past and recent history of sleep research.
Howard P. Roffwarg, M.D.
Professor of Psychiatry
University of Texas, Dallas
Dr. Roffwarg is a psychiatrist who began additional research training in the electrophysiology of the human and mammalian central nervous system (CNS) during his residency training. Though his laboratory participates in some research in the area of clinical sleep disorders, the main thrust is the elucidation of the mechanisms and functions of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. The long-term interests and activities of the laboratory are as follows: (1) psychophysiological relationships in REM sleep dreaming: sensorimotor autonomic coordination in the CNS during sleep; (2) neurophysiological studies of brainstem, multidirectional REMs phasic activity; (3) a "new" REM phasic motor phenomenon: middle ear muscle activity (MEMA); (4) events averaged off cortex occurring with REMs and MEMA; (5) neurochemical and neurophysiological analyses of sleep state mechanisms, using microiontophoretically applied agents in identified single cells in the CNS; (6) the function of the REM state in developmental maturation in adult CNS "exercise" of sensorimotor-autonomic systems during sleep; (7) circadian and ultradian neuroendocrine patterns, using the rapid sampling technique; (8) right-left hemisphere homotopic electrophysiology in sleep stages and waking; (9) right-left hemisphere homotopic electrophysiology and regional blood flow during activation tasks in schizophrenia; (10) standardization of sleep stage-scoring criteria; and (11) sleep architecture patterns and the biology of depression and bulimia.
Jerry Siegel, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
University of California, Los Angeles
Dr. Siegel has specialized in behavioral neurophysiology. He has developed techniques that have led to the analysis of motor relationships in reticular units recorded in unrestrained animals. He has conducted a series of studies combining brainstem transection and unit recording to help identify the brainstem regions required for REM sleep generation. His current research is focused on the further analysis of the role of the pontine reticular formation in REM sleep. Studies currently under way in his laboratory are providing the first evidence that extirpation of reticular somata by chemical techniques produces a persistent motor deficit. He is engaged in studies in decerebrate animals investigating the means by which cell subgroups within the medulla generate or prevent the muscle atonia of REM sleep. Some of the hypotheses developed in these experiments are now being applied in the first study of neuronal activity in narcolepsy. A group of medullary cells which may be responsible for triggering cataplexy has been identified in narcoleptic dogs. Thus, a variety of techniques and animal preparations are available for training purposes.
M.B. Sterman, Ph.D.
Professor of Anatomy and Psychiatry
University of California, Los Angeles
Dr. Sterman has been trained in both basic neurophysiology and behavioral sciences. His early research focused on the study of forebrain mechanisms for the initiation of sleep and involved electrophysiological, neuroanatomical and developmental studies of the basal forebrain area. Subsequent research was directed to methods for a reliable quantification of sleep states (he is co-author of a sleep scoring manual for the cat) and the use of this approach in the study of sleep mechanisms and related biological periodicities. More recent work has focused on non-invasive methods for sleep assessment and modification utilizing quantitative analyses of functionally identified EEG signals. Other work has examined the relationship between sleep and seizure disorders both in terms of mechanisms and clinical implications. Training in his laboratory provides exposure to basic techniques for the study of neuronal excitability in behaving animals.