Federal Project Grant Award Summary

The National Institute on Aging (NIA) awarded The Washington University a Project Grant of $578,856 under the Aging Research program (CFDA 93.866) on February 15, 2026, with a completion date of January 31, 2031. This award supports scientific research investigating the relationship between sleep and neurodegenerative disease, with the objective of identifying mechanisms through which sleep reinforces homeostatic set-points in neural activity and determining whether these processes can be augmented to mitigate disease progression. The research will employ novel computational analysis tools applied to continuous, months-long multi-site recordings of neural activity in P301S mice, a tauopathy model, and will evaluate two distinct non-invasive sleep-enhancement methods to bolster homeostatic control of neural criticality—an optimal computational regime that maximizes information processing.

The project will deliver quantitative research findings on the relationship between sleep-related patterns of neuronal activity, DNA damage reduction, and neurodegenerative disease progression. Specifically, the research will measure the impact of sleep reinforcement interventions on disease progression and cognitive function in animal models using a sophisticated prey capture task. The deliverables will include empirical data and analysis demonstrating whether reinforcement of criticality through homeostatic sleep enhancement prevents neurodegenerative disease and clarifying the mechanistic pathways through which sleep protects against tauopathy-related neuronal dysfunction.