Newswise — Florida Atlantic University’s Carmen Varela, Ph.D., recently received the Alzheimer’s Association’s “Research Fellowship to Promote Diversity” award to investigate the relationship between sleep patterns and one’s overall brain health. Poor sleep quality is associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other dementias from early stages and is thought to contribute to the progression of AD. With this three-year, $149,871 award, Varela will develop new indicators to monitor quality of sleep in deep brain structures affected in AD.
“Sleep disruption is not only distressful for patients with Alzheimer’s disease, it’s disruptive for their caregivers,” said Varela, an assistant professor of psychology, FAU Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, John D. MacArthur Campus at Jupiter, and a member of the Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute. “This Alzheimer’s…
