Ravi Allada, M.D.

Nearly every organism examined, even the jellyfish that lacks a centralized nervous system, exhibits a restorative sleep-like state. While asleep, we cannot eat, mate, defend ourselves from predators, or care for our young. Inadequate sleep contributes to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and depression and even diseases outside the brain, such as diabetes and obesity.

The Allada Lab’s principal goals are to identify the neuronal and molecular components of the sleep homeostat, to understand how those components cooperate to sense and control the sleep-wake state, and to reveal how molecular and neural homeostatic pathways impact brain function, health, and disease. Our strategy employs genetic tools primarily in the fruit fly Drosophila to dissect, manipulate and monitor the homeostatic machinery. This approach builds on our research to understand the molecular basis of circadian (~24 hr) behavior which has revealed sleep mechanisms conserved between invertebrates and vertebrates and incorporates work in mice and humans.

The Allada Lab discovered molecule “gears” of the core circadian clock, and pathways linking the core clock to daily sleep and wake rhythms. The Lab also identified molecular processes underlying sleep, including those associated with memory processing. Dr. Allada’s work extends discoveries in flies to mammals, including the development of diagnostic biomarker signatures for circadian time and examining the effects of jet lag on athletic performance.