Principal Investigator:

Vahid Mohsenin, MD
Fellow,
The John B. Pierce Laboratory

Director, Yale Center for Sleep Medicine
Professor in Internal Medicine
Yale University School of Medicine

Research Interests

Sleep apnea and intermittent hypoxia are associated with significant vascular dysfunction in the form of hypertension, myocardial infarction and stroke.  Mohsenin’s research interest is to explore the mechanisms underlying endothelial and vascular dysfunction due to hypoxia-reoxygenation in the setting of obstructive sleep apnea.  We have shown that sleep apnea increases the risk of stroke and death independent of known risk factors for stroke.  We have demonstrated that subjects with severe sleep apnea have impaired cerebrovascular autoregulation in response to fluctuations in arterial blood pressure.  In parallel with human studies we are conducting experiments on mice exposed to intermittent hypoxia to investigate the basic molecular mechanisms operative in the development of hypertension and vascular dysfunction.

Current Projects

Representative Publications