Brieann Satterfield, PhD, an assistant professor in the WSU Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine’s Department of Translational Medicine and Physiology, has been awarded a $693,000 grant from the Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium to investigate how pharmaceutical intervention might enhance the brain’s waste clearance system during sleep.

The project, part of a multi-institutional collaboration with the University of Washington and Applied Cognition, Inc., aims to mitigate the effects of sleep disruption and circadian misalignment on cognitive performance and health. It builds on previous work by UW’s Jeffrey Iliff, PhD, an expert in Alzheimer’s disease and glymphatic function.

“This study brings together experts from multiple institutions to study pharmacological modulation of the brain’s glymphatic system, which clears waste during sleep,” Satterfield said. “By identifying a pharmacological intervention that successfully modulates glymphatic function and improves waste clearance, we may be able to offset the negative impacts of sleep disruption and augment the restorative function of limited sleep on health and performance.” 

WSU researchers will test the drug in human participants, building on computational modeling and other lab testing at collaborating institutions. The researchers will conduct a controlled laboratory study of glymphatic flow, sleep, and performance and analyze resulting biomarker data to determine whether glymphatic function can be regulated pharmaceutically and measured non-invasively using wearable technology.

The study findings could be particularly useful for individuals in occupations with routine sleep disruption, such as health care workers, first responders, and military personnel. While not the main objective of the current study, findings could also have implications for understanding Alzheimer’s disease, since glymphatic dysfunction may contribute to the development of the disease.