The National Institutes of Health have recently awarded Jennifer Magnusson, a graduate student in the laboratory of Assistant Professor Kevin Cummings, PhD, a predoctoral fellowship to study whether serotonin maintains heart rate and blood pressure during sleep.
Currently, there are approximately 4,000 sleep-related infant deaths that occur in the United States alone each year, most of which are attributed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
The grant, entitled, “The Role of Central 5-HT in Heart Rate and Blood Pressure Regulation During Sleep in the Neonatal Period,” is intended to develop new strategies to reduce the incidence of SIDS by reinforcing cardiovascular function during sleep.