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Details for Dr Ana Paula Abdala Sheikh

Personal details
Name Dr Ana Paula Abdala Sheikh
Job title Research Fellow
Senior Lecturer
Department School of Physiology, Pharmacology & Neuroscience University of Bristol
School of Physiology, Pharmacology & Neuroscience University of Bristol
Contact details This expert can be contacted via the University of Bristol Public Relations Office.

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work+44 (0)117 331 8092
email:
Qualifications BSc, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Professional details
Membership of professional bodies Physiological Society
Keywords breathing
blood pressure
Rett Syndrome
cot death
congenital hypoventilation
sleep apnea
hypertension
Areas of expertise How does the brain generate breathing? Breathing is the most important process controlled by the brain, it happens non-stop from birth until death. It constantly changes to allow speech, singing, exercising, eating, drinking, coughing… and we are hardly aware of it. We still don’t understand completely all the factors involved in generating breathing.

With the information gathered in our lab, we aim to build a computational model of the regions of the brain that generate breathing. The goal is for this computational model to reproduce all the aspects of breathing in normal conditions and in disease states.

This research will help us understand the mechanisms behind respiratory syndromes like ‘cot death’ and Rett Syndrome. Further, a robust computational model of the respiratory centres in the brain would allow us to identify targets for treatment and test them in theory before long costly experimentation takes place.
Languages (other than English)
Portuguese spoken    written