Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

The Effects Of Aging On Sleep Parameters In A Healthy, Melatonin-Competent Mouse Model, Jiffin K. Paulose, Chanung Wang, Bruce F. O'Hara, Vincent M. Cassone

Biology Faculty Publications

Background: Sleep disturbances are common maladies associated with human age. Sleep duration is decreased, sleep fragmentation is increased, and the timing of sleep onset and sleep offset is earlier. These disturbances have been associated with several neurodegenerative diseases. Mouse models for human sleep disturbances can be powerful due to the accessibility to neuroscientific and genetic approaches, but these are hampered by the fact that most mouse models employed in sleep research have spontaneous mutations in the biosynthetic pathway(s) regulating the rhythmic production of the pineal hormone melatonin, which has been implicated in human sleep.

Purpose and method: The present study …

Investigating The Role Of Neuronal Aging In Fragile X-Associated Tremor/Ataxia Syndrome, Katlin Marie Hencak

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS) is an X-linked late-onset neurodegenerative disorder caused by a noncoding trinucleotide repeat expansion in the FMR1 gene. This gene produces fragile x mental retardation protein (FMRP), an RNA binding protein whose targets are involved in brain development and synaptic plasticity. One of the proposed mechanisms of FXTAS pathogenesis is an RNA gain-of-function in which the repeat expansion causes toxic mRNA that sequesters important proteins in the cell, interfering with their functions. Another suggested method of pathogenesis is through a mutant protein called FMRpolyG. This protein results from repeat-associated non-AUG (RAN) translation, in which the expanded …