Ilana Hairston is a research faculty at the University of Michigan's Addiction Research Center (UMARC). She received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from The School of Medicine at Stanford University. Ilana specializes in sleep research focusing on the function of sleep in plasticity and the interface with stress regulation. Ilana joined UMARC in 2008, working with Dr. Kirk Brower and Roseanne Armitage on mechanisms of sleep impairment in alcohol dependent individuals. She also collaborates with Drs. Mary Heitzig, Alex DaSilva, and Jon-Kar Zubieta on neurocognitive predisposition of sleep difficulties in children, and with Dr. Maria Muzik on the role of prenatal stress in sleep development. Ilana’s current interests are in the neural mechanism of sleep disturbances in psychopathology during early development and aging.

Selected Publications:

• Anxiety and Sleep. In: The Handbook Of Anxiety And Anxiety Disorders; Ed. Martin M. Antony; Oxford University Press. Harvey, A. G., Hairston, I. S., Gruber, J. L., Gershon, A. (2008).
• Sleep and Neurogenesis – New opportunity or more of the same? In: Ed. M. P. Klausen, Neurogenesis Research Advances. Nova Science Publishers. New Your, NY. Hairston I. S. (2008)
• Neural mechanisms of the time-order error: an MEG study, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19(7): 1163-174. Hairston I. S., Nagarajan S. S. (2007)
• Sleep restriction suppresses neurogenesis induced by hippocampus-dependent learning (J. Neurophys, 94: 4224-4233). Hairston I. S., Little M. T. M., Scanlon M., Palmer T. D., Sapolsky R. M., Heller H. C. (2005)
• Environmental Enrichment Reduces A{beta} Levels and Amyloid Deposition in Transgenic Mice. Cell, 120: 701-715. Lazarov O., Robinson J., Tang Y-P., Hairston I. S., Korade-Mirnics Z., Lee V. M-Y, Hersh L. B., Sapolsky R. M. and Sisodia S. S. (2005)
• Sleep on it. Nature 2004, 430 (6995): 27-28. Hairston I. S. and Knight R. T. (2004)
• Sleep deprivation effects on growth factor expression in neonatal rats: A potential role for BDNF in the mediation of delta power. J Neurophysiol 91: 1586–1595, Hairston I. S., Peyron C., Denning D. P., Ruby N. F., Flores J., Sapolsky R. M., Heller H. C., O’Hara B. F. (2004)
• Sleep deprivation elevates plasma corticosterone levels in neonatal rats. Neurosci Lett 23: 315(1-2): 29-32. Hairston I. S., Ruby N. F., Brooke S., Peyron C., Denning D. P., Heller H. C., Sapolsky R. M. (2001)
• Harvey I. G., Hairston I. S., Gershon A., Gruber J. L. (2008) Special Considerations for Treatment of Insomnia. In: Ed. CA Kushida, Handbook of Sleep Disorders, 2nd edition. Taylor and Francis Group.