Grant: Operating Grant

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is the most common and severe sleep disorder. It affects more than 18 million North Americans and causes disturbed sleep, excessive sleepiness, high blood pressure, clogged arteries, stroke, brain damage and shortened lifespan. A distinguishing feature of OSA is that it occurs exclusively during sleep. OSA patients breathe normally while awake but not while asleep. This occurs because the brain fails to keep important throat muscles active during sleep and this causes the airspace to collapse making normal breathing impossible. Since OSA is caused by overly relaxed breathing muscles, then it should be cured by increasing breathing muscle activity in sleep. The problem, however, is that scientists do not understand how the brain controls muscles during sleep. My laboratory's current research efforts are directed toward understanding this important question. Specifically, we are doing this by determining what chemicals in the brain control muscle activity during sleep. This information is, in turn, being used to develop new and useful drugs that prevent excessive relaxation of breathing muscles during sleep. This research is therefore scientifically and clinically important because it proposes a potentially feasible drug treatment for OSA.