Directory of Experts
Details for Dr Ana Paula Sheikh
| Personal details | |||
| Name | Dr Ana Paula Sheikh | ||
| Job title | Research Fellow |
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| Department | School of Physiology and Pharmacology University of Bristol |
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| Contact details | This expert can be contacted via the University of Bristol Public Relations
Office. To help us deal with your request, please mention the Directory of Experts when contacting the Public Relations Office. work+44 (0)117 928 7777 email: public-relations@bristol.ac.uk |
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| Qualifications | MSc, PhD | ||
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| Membership of professional bodies | Physiological Society |
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| Keywords | breathing blood pressure Rett Syndrome cot death congenital hypoventilation sleep apnea hypertension |
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| 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. |
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