news and highlights
Winter 2022: Appearance on Physio Webinars
A complete lecture on a role for glymphatic dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease.
Spring 2022: Featured on OPB “All Science. No Fiction.”
If the team’s hypothesis holds, disrupting sleep will disrupt the glymphatic system, and improving deep sleep will make it work even better. Ideally, Rane Levendovszky’s new MRI techniques will be able to measure glymphatic flow in both cases.
2014 - talk at tedmed
The brain uses a quarter of the body's entire energy supply, yet only accounts for about two percent of the body's mass. So how does this unique organ receive and, perhaps more importantly, rid itself of vital nutrients? New research suggests it has to do with sleep.
Spring 2022 - Coverage in Washington Post on DoD-funded glymphatic enhancement project
“And I think within the next seven years we are going to start to see approaches — like maybe this device, maybe some pharmacological approaches — that can begin to modulate it, that can maybe turn it up if you want to try to turn it up,” Iliff said. “I think things are starting to move very quickly in this field as work starts to move out into human populations.”
Winter 2022 - WIRED Tech Support
Sleep researcher Dr. Jeffrey Iliff answers the internet's burning questions about sleep. What causes sleep paralysis? Can we control our lucid dreams? Why do naps make us more tired? Can you ever catch up on sleep? Dr. Iliff answers all these questions and much more.
Fall 2021 - Feature on NPR affiliate KUOW: “A device to 'cleanse' the brain and enhance sleep: UW researchers have started human trials”
Researchers want to see if they can enhance the glymphatic process with an electronic headband that would stimulate your brain in just the right way. The hope is that we could get better brain cleaning with less sleep, or even get some of that benefit while we’re awake.
Fall 2021 - Coverage of MTEC-sponsored project “Augmented Neurophysiology of Sleep and Performance Readiness,”
Improving the brain’s cleaning function with a device “could improve the cognitive effects of acute sleep deprivation and chronic sleep restriction.”
Fall 2020 - Featured on NPR Short Wave Program, “One more step towards solving the sleep & Alzheimer’s puzzle”
Winter 2019: Feature in Quanta magazine piece
“Sleeping Brain Waves Draw a Healthy Bath for Neurons”
Fall 2019: Featured in UW ADRC Dimensions publication
“Modern scientific approaches to understanding the brain’s refreshing overnight processes could lead to a new preventative therapy for dementia.”
2016 - TED Radio Hour: Toxic
“Neuroscientist Jeff Iliff talks about his research, which explores how the brain naturally flushes out toxins during sleep.”
2019 Opening of VA Puget Sound Mental Health Building (the Iliff Lab’s home)
“Through the years, the Puget Sound VA also has emerged as the fifth largest research program within the national Department of Veterans Affairs system. It has been a focal point for studying PTSD and head injuries from blasts, which took on increased urgency as veterans returned from the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
2017 - Neuro Centro Interview
In our final video recorded at the event, we speak to Jeffrey Iliff, Associate Professor at Oregon Health and Science University, OR, USA. Jeff and colleagues are carrying out pivotal work on glymphatics – the study of the functional waste clearance pathway in the CNS. Jeff tells us about his work, how dysfunction in the glymphatic system could contribute to Alzheimer’s disease, and how our growing knowledge in this area could be harnessed to develop new disease-modifying treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.
2017 - Washington Post story on the glymphatic system
“Last year, Jeff Iliff, a neuroscientist at Oregon Health & Science University, and several colleagues examined postmortem tissue from 79 human brains. They focused on aquaporin-4, a key protein in glymphatic vessels. In the brains of people with Alzheimer’s, this protein was jumbled; in those without the disease, the protein was well organized. This suggests that glymphatic breakdowns may play a role in the disease, Iliff says.”
2017 - al jazeera - Sleep: the new commodity
“We all need it, we don’t get enough of it, and even though it makes us feel great, it always seems just out of grasp. No, it’s not money, it’s sleep.”
2017 - Alzforum coverage of J Neurosci study
“In the March 15 Journal of Neuroscience, scientists led by Maiken Nedergaard, University of Rochester Medical Center, New York, and Jeffrey Iliff, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, report that in mice, teeny strokes have a broad impact on cleansing throughout the brain.”
2017 - Alzforum coverage of JAMA Neurology Study
“A study published in the November 28 issue of JAMA Neurology lends credence to this idea. Researchers led by Jeffrey Iliff at the Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, report that a water channel called aquaporin 4 (Aqp4) goes missing from its normal site surrounding blood vessels in AD, suggesting that one of the brain’s clearance systems, the “glymphatic” pathway, may be compromised.”
2016 - Appearance on CBC program The Nature of Things: While You Were Sleeping
“I think the brain carries out its most sophisticated memory and brain functions while we sleep,” says Dr. Stickgold. “I think that what happens during sleep permits what happens in the waking brain,” agrees neuroscientist, Dr. Jeff Iliff.
2016 - Appearance on the Academic Minute Podcast
“Your brain’s janitor may get worse as you age. In today's Academic Minute, Oregon Health and Science University's Jeff Iliff discusses how the brain’s cleaning process may be hindered as we get older, and could trigger diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Iliff is an assistant professor and vice chair for research in the department of anesthesiology and perioperative medicine at OHSU.”
2016 - Featured on NPR Morning Edition
“If Rooney and Iliff are right, the experiment will greatly strengthen the argument that a lack of sleep can lead to Alzheimer's disease. It might also provide a way to identify people whose health is at risk because they aren't getting enough deep sleep, and it could pave the way to new treatments.”
2015 - appearance on ‘people behind the science’ podcast
“If you’re concerned about funding and how hard it is to make it in an academic science career, keep in mind that if you are the best in your field, if you work harder, and if you have better insights than other people, then you will never have to worry about funding.”
2015 - Appearance on BBC Naked Scientists podcast, “The Secrets of Sleep”
“Sleep is essential. It makes you feel better and gets rid of those dark circles under your eyes, but it's importance goes way beyond that. It's when our bodies repair damage, renew cells, balance hormones, clean out waste products and so much more. Beyond that, sleep also helps support several aspects of mental health, brain function, and long-term wellness. But what happens when you don't get enough shut eye? Jeffrey Iliff has been tackling this question at Oregon Health and Science University.”
2014 National Geographic documentary “Sleepless in America”
2015 - Seattle Times coverage of Paul G. Allen family foundation grant
““They put a call out for people willing to take some chances and try something crazy,” said Jeff Iliff, of Oregon Health & Science University, in Portland. He and his colleague William Rooney got $1.4 million to determine whether aging makes people more vulnerable by disrupting a natural housecleaning system in the brain.”