Girardin Jean-Louis
University of Miami, FL·Public Health & Epidemiology
Poor sleep may be an early, preventable risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Sleep deficiency, which covers poor sleep, sleep apnea and a body clock out of step with daily life, is linked to higher AD risk and faster cognitive decline.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Neuroscience
- Topics
obstructive sleep apnea
sleep deficiency
circadian misalignment
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through May 2028
What they work on
- Test in a randomized trial of 330 newly diagnosed older Black adults whether personalized web-based video messaging and coaching (PRAISE) increases adherence to positive airway pressure treatment for obstructive sleep apnea.
- Determine whether sleep apnea treatment improves blood markers of brain injury and Alzheimer's disease (Hcy, NFL, GFAP, tau, amyloid-β) and cognitive function after 6 months.
- Assess whether sleep apnea treatment improves health-related quality of life, daytime functioning and sleep quality among older Black patients.
- Identify psychosocial and household or neighborhood factors linked to sleep deficiency in 504 older Black adults, using home recorders of sleep, light, noise, air quality and temperature, and geospatial analytics.
- Assess how sleep deficiency affects brain-injury biomarkers and cognition, and forecast with Bayesian machine learning and agent-based modeling which environmental changes could lower sleep deficiency over 20 years.
More about the research
Black Americans carry a larger burden of both sleep problems and AD, yet little research explains why or tests treatments in this group. Two projects study older Black adults: one asks what in people's lives and surroundings drives poor sleep and how it affects the brain, and the other tests whether helping people stick with sleep apnea treatment protects brain health.
Why it matters
Older Black adults face higher rates of sleep apnea, poor sleep and Alzheimer's disease. A scalable, personalized program that helps people use sleep apnea treatment could improve cognition and Alzheimer's-related blood markers in this group. Identifying the home and neighborhood stressors that disrupt sleep could guide prevention efforts and health policy, and help sleep clinics share targeted messages to reduce brain health disparities.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Lichuan Ye
Northeastern University, MA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Refine OurSleepKit, a couple-focused mobile health app for obstructive sleep apnea, through an iterative participatory design process using qualitative methods with patients and their partners.
Devin L Brown
University of Michigan, MI·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine which obstructive sleep apnea endotypes, such as airway collapsibility, loop gain and arousal threshold, drive sleep apnea after stroke, and how they differ by ethnicity and from stroke-free participants, using polysomnography in the BASIC study.
Esther Blessing
New York University, NY·Neuroscience
Verify that lower waking body temperature, measured with an ingestible telemetric thermometer, predicts tau tangles on [18F]-MK-6240 PET in 100 older adults who are cognitively normal or have mild cognitive impairment.
The school
University of Miami: 30 labs on PI Pages, $559M a year on research, 297 research doctorates a year.
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