Description of Research Expertise

Dr. Naidoo’s research focuses on proteostatic mechanisms underlying age related changes in sleep and wake regulation. She has established that sleep loss or sleep disturbances induce endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress that up-regulates an adaptive homeostatic signaling pathway, the unfolded protein response (UPR). She has demonstrated that the UPR and proteostasis become impaired with aging. ER stress and the UPR are critical to the initiation and integration of pathways of inflammation as well as in the etiology of neurodegenerative diseases. Using two model systems, mouse and Drosophila, to carry out research on proteostasis mechanisms her group is unraveling the role of the UPR in behavior and pathologies. Her work has demonstrated that restoring proteostasis rescues the sleep phenotype in aged animals and cognition in aged and Alzheimer's disease mouse models. She has expanded her research to investigate the role of proteostasis mechanisms in Alzheimer's disease and in co-occurring conditions in Down Syndrome. Other research in her group is focused on the role of the synaptic scaffolding protein, Homer and its interaction with metabotropic glutamate receptors in the maintenance of wakefulness.