Biomedical Seminar Series

SEMINAR: “Bmal1 in skeletal muscle regulates resistance to sleep loss” by Ketema Paul, PhD, Associate Professor UCLA   Sleep loss can severely impair the ability to perform, yet the ability to recover from sleep loss is not well understood. Sleep regulatory processes are assumed to lie exclusively within the brain mainly due to the strong behavioral manifestations of sleep. Whole-body knockout of the circadian clock gene Bmal1 in mice is known to alter several aspects of sleep. Surprisingly, Dr. Paul has found that restoring Bmal1 function exclusively in skeletal muscle of Bmal1 knockout mice, not the brain, rescued most of their altered sleep phenotypes. Moreover, overexpression or knockout of Bmal1 in skeletal muscle had opposing effects on electroencephalographic sleep traits and reduced the sleep-rebound after sleep loss. Overall, these findings strongly implicate skeletal muscle as a direct regulator of sleep.

INDIVIDUAL MEETINGS: If you are interested in a one-on-one meeting with Dr. Paul, sign up here. Available to everyone on the WSU Spokane campus who may be interested.     Questions? Please contact Breezy Tottenhoff.