Cynthia Kusters
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Poor sleep is linked to a higher risk of memory loss and Alzheimer's disease. The risk may be highest for people who have both insomnia (trouble falling or staying asleep) and short sleep, meaning too few hours of sleep.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Neuroscience
Genetics
- Topics
Alzheimer's disease
cognitive decline
dementia
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2029
What they work on
- Identify DNA methylation and metabolomic signatures linked to short sleep and insomnia, alone and combined, in a high-risk Hispanic population. Compare them with known Alzheimer's disease biomarkers to find shared pathways.
- Measure how partial sleep deprivation changes blood metabolites and blood-based Alzheimer's biomarkers of nerve cell damage in experiment participants, using bioinformatic pathway analysis.
- Estimate the causal effect of short sleep and insomnia on Alzheimer's disease using Mendelian randomization, a method that uses genetic variants to separate cause from correlation. Test which identified biomarkers carry this effect.
More about the research
This combination is also linked to heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Scientists still do not know which biological processes connect this kind of poor sleep to brain degeneration. Only a few sleep deprivation experiments have measured Alzheimer's disease markers in the blood. This project aims to trace those biological pathways, with a focus on a Hispanic population at high risk.
Why it matters
Poor sleep is common and can be changed, so knowing how short sleep and insomnia raise Alzheimer's disease risk could point to biological targets for future treatments. The focus on a Hispanic population could help address health disparities in a group at high risk for dementia. The blood markers identified may also help future studies track how sleep affects brain health.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Lang Wu
University of Hawaii at Manoa, HI·Public Health & Epidemiology
Develop ancestry-specific genetic prediction models for DNA methylation, gene expression, protein and metabolite levels in blood across African American, Hispanic/Latino, Asian American, European American and Native Hawaiian populations.
Dabeeru Rao
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Genetics
Identify new genetic loci for cardiometabolic traits through genome-wide interaction studies (GWIS) with lifestyle factors in about 1.267 million European, African, Hispanic and Asian ancestry participants.
Tanika Kelly
University of Illinois Chicago, IL·Public Health & Epidemiology
Recruit 300 diverse adults with and without diabetic kidney disease and collect blood and environmental exposure data, such as metals and social conditions, every year for three years.
The school
University of California-Los Angeles: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 803 research doctorates a year.
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