Automated Sleep Apnea Systems

We developed fully automated systems to model sleep apnea in both murine and cell culture models. These systems precisely control oxygen and nitrogen delivery and operate continuously, 24 hours a day, year-round, ensuring stable and reproducible hypoxia–reoxygenation cycles with minimal manual intervention. In addition, the platform includes automated sleep fragmentation (SF) and sleep deprivation (SD) modules and can combine sleep fragmentation with intermittent hypoxia (IH) to more accurately mimic sleep apnea in long-term, large-scale experimental studies.

• Sleep apnea is affecting 1 billion people globally and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is the most common form of sleep apnea.
• OSA is characterized by recurring upper airway obstruction events during sleep which leads to increase respiratory effort, intermittent hypoxemia, periods of elevated blood carbon dioxide levels, autonomic surges, and episodic arousals that cause sleep fragmentation.
• OSA is a highly prevalent condition that is associated with accelerated biological aging and multiple end-organ morbidities. 
• OSA is associated with cardiovascular, metabolic and neurological systems dysfunction.
• OSA can induce cognitive and behavioral and mood deficits.

Automated Hypoxia Control in Cell Culture