"My name is Anne-Marie Fink and our laboratory is part of the Center for Narcolepsy, Sleep
and Health Research and this is a laboratory that's in the College of Nursing, and so that
gives a unique background to our laboratory works.
So most of the faculty has a background in nursing or some other clinical specialty and
I really think that's a huge strength for us because it allows us to see the big picture.
I should also say our group studies sleep disorders and as nurses we know a lot about
what's in the clinical area in terms of sleep disorders, but research is certainly lacking
in that area.
I was always interested in science and I chose to go in to nursing because I always wanted
to work in hospitals and that work had always fascinated me.
And so I worked for several years, went into the military almost immediately after finishing
nursing school and I did that for several years.
This is where my interest in sleep really started to come about.
When I was working in the intensive care unit and I saw that there was an unmet need for
understanding disorders related to sleep.
And fortunately, I had great opportunities to pursue training for graduate school and
everything fell very nicely into place where I had the opportunity to study in labs that
were examining sleep and cardiovascular function and then that came together for me with the
opportunity to have this laboratory at the University of Illinois and work with a top
notch team.
You know nationally renowned sleep researchers.
So for me, I think that's really where the interest sparked, that I just saw that there
was something that the world didn't know and I wanted to be part of solving those puzzles,
solving those problems.
What I am interested in understanding is why people who have sleep apnea syndrome develop
high blood pressure.
And sleep apnea is a huge public health problem and people who have this condition have a
high likelihood of developing increased blood pressure and therefore increased stroke.
So my work is focused on understanding the brain stem connections that play a role.
An important factor in sleep apnea is that there tends to be an over activation of the
sympathetic nervous system and its thought that this may play a role in why people develop
elevations in blood pressure over time.
If I know the function that I believe those neurons have, I can stimulate them and then
see for example, do I get an increase in blood pressure, do I get apnea, which is a pause
in breathing?
So, do I get the function that I believe those neurons have?
And then when I study the tissue later, I can leave dyes or marks in there and then
find that site where I had been and then link thatâ€¦I can link the function with the
anatomy.
It's interesting because my work is in laboratory animals, but all of the treatments that we're
doing is to lead up to better treatments for people.
And the treatments that exist today, especially for sleep apnea are limited and people find
them difficult to tolerate and the work that we're doing I think will lead to more innovative
approach, particularity the work that I'm doing in the brain stem is important for delineating
these pathways, that could be altered by drugs or other interventions to improve outcomes.
I would say my ultimate hope is to disseminate new knowledge.
So new knowledge of how the brain works and how sleep works and these are things that
people just don't understand very well.
Something that keeps us alive and is responsible for all of our basic functions, whether that
be sleep, breathing, digestionâ€¦all of those things, we just don't really know a
lot about it.
We don't know about all the different areas in the brain stem and how they play those
roles together.
So I think that would make a huge mark on science to just have more information on that
physiology.
I do, I would say that t I like it more every day.
And there are certainly aspects of it that are work, such as publishing your results
and getting the experiments set up.
But at the end of the day, you've achieved something and you've discovered something
and you have something new, and that part of it is very exciting.