Robert Strecker

BIOGRAPHY

ACADEMIC/RESEARCH POSITIONS:
• Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
• Research Career Scientist, VA Boston Healthcare System

EDUCATION:
• BS University of California Santa Barbara (Physiological Psychology)
• PhD Princeton University (Psychology and Neuroscience)

MEMBERSHIPS:
• Member of the Society for Neuroscience (USA)
• Member of the Sleep Research Society (USA)
• Member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (USA)

RESEARCH INTERESTS:
The Strecker lab studies how the brain controls behavior, particularly that of sleep and wakefulness. His early work examined the physiology and neuropharmacology of monoamine neurotransmitter systems in the mammalian brain in relation to sleep, drug abuse, Parkinson's disease, and the potential use of neural transplantation to treat neurological disorders. At Harvard his research has focused on the brain circuitry involved in the control of sleep. Three papers from the late 1990’s describe the brainstem mechanisms controlling REM sleep, in particular the promotion of REM sleep by reticular cholinergic activity and the inhibition of REM sleep by increases in brainstem monoaminergic neurotransmission. More recent studies have investigated the regulation of wakefulness and non-REM sleep by wakefulness-promoting neurons located in the basal forebrain region. The basal forebrain region of mammals contains a population of cortically projecting and wakefulness-promoting neurons. Our data show that adenosine (a putative sleep factor, and the “A” in ATP), can produce sleepiness via an inhibition of these arousal related neurons. During periods of prolonged wakefulness adenosine accumulates in the basal forebrain where it acts on inhibitory A1 receptors to produce drowsiness and increase sleep. These findings are now widely cited, in part, because they provide a mechanistic understanding of the arousing properties of caffeine (an adenosine antagonist drug). A new line of research was initiated in 2002 investigating the role of adenosine and the basal forebrain in the pathological sleepiness associated with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) using rat models. Ongoing research investigates the behavioral and neurobiological consequences of sleep disruption in rodents.


HOME PAGE
https://sleep.med.harvard.edu/people/faculty/231/Robert+E+Strecker+PhD