Julia Kravchenko

Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Michigan

Sleep is a phenomenon present in virtually all organisms. Humans require sleep for proper functioning, so age, dementia, and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) affect the quality of our sleep and the effects it has on cognition and brain health. Despite being universal, sleep looks different on everyone, making the inbred mouse a difficult tool with which to accurately assess the complex relationship between sleep and disease, particularly in the context of translation. Using the AD-BXD panel as a reproducible, genetically diverse model of aging and AD, I hope to discover the genes involved in sleep and resilience/susceptibility to AD-related cognitive decline.