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NJIT Mathematical Biology Seminar

Tuesday, September 20, 2011, 4:00pm
Cullimore Hall 611
New Jersey Institute of Technology

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Modeling mammalian sleep/wake physiology to understand dynamics at the behavioral level

Andrew Phillips

Harvard Medical School

In the past decade, many of the physiological mechanisms that control the mammalian sleep/wake cycle have been discovered. These findings have spurred the development of physiologically based mathematical models. Unlike phenomenological models of sleep and wake, these new models allow us to relate underlying physiology to observed behavior. Here, we describe the development of a model of the sleep/wake switch in the hypothalamus and brainstem, which includes circadian and homeostatic physiology. The model is then used to explore the mechanisms underlying inter-species differences in sleep/wake timing and structure. The model is shown to account for a wide variety of sleep patterns (including polyphasic sleep in rodents, monophasic sleep in humans, and unihemispheric sleep in dolphins) and sleep timings (diurnal vs. nocturnal). This model thus has significant potential as a translational tool for relating diverse datasets and gaining insights into underlying physiology.