Sleep

William Killgore

Professor, Psychiatry
Professor, Psychology
Professor, Medical Imaging
Member of the Graduate Faculty
Professor, BIO5 Institute
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 621-0605

Work Summary

Dr. Killgore is the Director of the Social, Cognitive, and Affective Neuroscience (SCAN) Lab in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Arizona. He is a clinical neuropsychologist and research neuroscientist whose research focuses on understanding the brain systems involved in emotional processes and cognitive performance. For the past decade, his work has focused nearly exclusively on the factors affecting the mental health, wellbeing, and performance of military personnel and combat Veterans. His work combines neurocognitive assessment with state-of-the-art neuroimaging methods to study the role of emotion in complex cognitive processes such as moral judgment, decision-making, and risk-taking. He is also interested in how these brain-behavior systems may be affected by environmental and lifestyle factors such as insufficient sleep, nutrition, light exposure, physical activity, and stimulants such as caffeine. In particular, Dr. Killgore has explored the role of sleep as a mediator of psychological and emotional health and the potential role of insufficient sleep as a contributor to psychiatric disturbance, emotional dysregulation, and risk-related behavior. He is currently conducting several Department of Defense funded studies on problems affecting military personnel including mild traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Research Interest

Dr. Killgore holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Texas Tech University, and has completed postdoctoral training in Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of Oklahoma and the University of Pennsylvania, and postdoctoral training in Cognitive Neuroimaging at Harvard Medical School. As Principal investigator, Dr. Killgore currently has over $17 million in active grant funding from the Department of Defense to study methods for accelerating recovery from mild traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, to develop online training programs for enhancing emotional intelligence and resilience skills in military personnel, to study the effects of stress on cognitive processing, and to validate a machine-learning cell-phone application that will individually tailor caffeine administration to sustain optimal performance during sleep deprivation. Presently, Dr. Killgore is principal investigator on multiple projects, including three aimed at improving sleep-wake patterns among individuals with mild traumatic brain injuries and/or post-traumatic stress disorder, while a fourth study is focused on modeling the recovery patterns of brain connectivity and cognitive performance at various stages of recovery following concussion, a fifth study is focused on developing internet-based methods for enhancing emotional intelligence and resilience capacities, and a sixth project aimed at identifying the personality factors that contribute to the ability to cope with emotional stress. He recently completed a DARPA funded study to identify the neurocircuitry that underlies the ability to sustain cognitive resilience during periods of sleep deprivation. Dr. Killgore also has over 18 years of military service, including 5 years on active duty as a Medical Service Corps officer and Research Psychologist in the United States Army during the Global War on Terror. While stationed at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington, DC, Dr. Killgore served as Chief of the Neurocognitive Performance Branch and Special Volunteer with the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders within the National Institutes of Health. During his service, he was awarded the COL Edward L. Buescher Award for Excellence in Research by a Young Scientist. Dr. Killgore remains active as a Research Psychologist in the U.S. Army Reserve, currently holding the rank of Colonel. Dr. Killgore was affiliated with Harvard Medical School for 18 years. From 2000-2010, Dr. Killgore was an Instructor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA, with a 5-year leave of absence during his active military service. He was promoted to the rank of Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in 2010 with promotion to Associate Professor at Harvard in 2012. There, he served as Director of the Social, Cognitive, and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA, until taking a position as Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in 2014.

Fabian Fernandez

Assistant Professor, Psychology
Assistant Professor, Evelyn F Mcknight Brain Institute
Assistant Professor, Neurology
Assistant Professor, Neuroscience - GIDP
Assistant Professor, BIO5 Institute
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 621-7447

Work Summary

Fabian-Xosé Fernandez's work includes a focus on parsing the logic used by the circadian pacemaker to interpret multidimensional light patterns, developing light-emitting diode (LED) photo-stimulation protocols to improve mental and physical health across the lifespan, and understanding the role that nocturnal wakefulness plays in suicide risk and developing countermeasures centered around light exposure.

Research Interest

Fabian-Xosé Fernandez, PhD, Departments of Psychology and Neurology, McKnight Brain InstituteCircadian timekeeping is fundamental to human health. Unfortunately, under many clinical circumstances, the temporal organization of our minds and bodies can stray slowly from the Universal Time (UT) that is set with the Earth’s rotation. This disorganization has been linked to progression of several age-related and psychiatric diseases. Non-invasive phototherapy has the potential to improve disease outcomes, but the information that the brain’s clock tracks in twilight (or any electric light signal) to assure that a person entrains their sleep-wake cycles to the outside world is not understood. The central theme of my research program is to fill in this blank and to usher in an era where therapeutically relevant “high-precision” light administration protocols are institutionalized at the level of the American Medical and Psychiatric Associations to change the standard of care for a wide variety of conditions that impair quality of life. Of the conditions my lab is currently studying, we are particularly interested in how chronic and quick, sequenced light exposure can be designed to: 1. promote normal healthy aging and 2. strengthen adaptive cognitive/emotional responses to being awake in the middle of the night (12-6AM), a key interval of the 24-h cycle that we have associated with increased suicidal ideation and mortality. Our circadian work on suicide is done in very close partnership with the University of Arizona Sleep Health and Research Program directed by Dr. Michael A. Grandner.

E.Fiona Bailey

Professor, Physiology
Professor, Evelyn F Mcknight Brain Institute
Professor, Speech/Language and Hearing
Professor, BIO5 Institute
Member of the General Faculty
Member of the Graduate Faculty
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 626-8299

Research Interest

My research focus is the neural control of breathing in human and nonhuman mammals. My earlier work assessed the role of pulmonary stretch receptors and central chemoreceptors in the genesis and relief of dyspnea or shortness of breath in healthy adults. These studies led to studies in the mammalian (rodent) airway that explored the modulation of upper airway muscles activities by chemical and pulmonary afferent feedback and the potential for selective electrical stimulation of the cranial nerve XII to alter airway geometry and volume (NIH/NIDCD RO3). Beginning in 2005, with the support of an NIH/NIDCD K23 I began work in neural control of upper airway muscles using tungsten microelectrodes to record from single motor units in adult human subjects. This work led in turn, to studies of regional (or segmental) muscle and motor unit activities in human subjects under volitional, state-dependent (i.e., wake/sleep) and chemoreceptor drives, in health and disease (NIH/NIDCD RO1). On the basis of the experimental work in muscle and motor units I have pursued additional lines of enquiry focused on clinical respiratory dysfunction in two specific populations a) infants at risk for SIDS and b) adults diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Both lines of enquiry are highly innovative and have diagnostic and clinical applications. One recent line of enquiry explores the potential for a non-pharmacologic intervention daily to lower blood pressure and to improve sleep in patients diagnosed with mild-moderate obstructive sleep apnea. This training protocol shows promise as a cheap, effective and safe means of lowering blood pressure and improving autonomic-cardiovascular dysfunction in patients who are unwilling or unable to use the standard CPAP therapy.