The Washington Post features Swati Rane Levendovszky, Ph.D.

Swati Rane Levendovszky, Ph.D., was recently featured in The Washington Post for research on sleep and the glymphatic system. 

Dr. Rane Levendovszky, Director of the Diagnostic Imaging Sciences Center (DISC) and Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiology, is working with Jeffrey Iliff, Ph.D., Associate Director for Research and Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Department of Neurology, and other partnering universities on the research, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Don Tucker, a professor emeritus at the University of Oregon, is working on the experimental device that monitors sleep. After sensing light sleep for a few minutes, it pulses electric current through the scalp and skull, nudging the brain into that nirvana known as deep sleep, according to the Washington Post. Dr. Levendovszky has been developing MRI techniques to observe and measure the speed and flow of the fluid that washes the brain. If successful, the techniques could show whether Tucker’s device increases that flow, the news website said.

Dr. Levendovszky said it might also someday help doctors assess patients for Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia.

“Each of these are associated with an inability to clear one type of toxic protein in the brain, and glymphatics is related to that,” she told The Washington Post.

Read the entire story on The Washington Post. 

Dr. Levendovszky and this research project were previously featured on KUOW, and was also recently featured on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s new show “All Science. No Fiction.” which can be seen below.