Astrocytes play a starring role in sleep regulation

Here, Bruker Fluorescence Microscopy highlights Dr. Ashley Ingiosi's research. Dr. Ingiosi’s research focuses on the role of astrocytes, a type of glial cell in the brain, in sleep and sleep homeostasis. Sleep plays a critical role in overall mammalian health, although many aspects of sleep regulation are not yet understood. When Dr. Ingiosi was choosing her graduate project at the University of Michigan, she wanted to contribute novel advancements to her field. She noticed that most of what was known about sleep was based on the study of neurons, however, there was another brain cell type - glia - that was potentially important to sleep and there were not many in vivo studies looking at these non-neuronal cell types in the brain.