David M. Raizen

About

David M. Raizen, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the Mahoney Institute of Neurological Sciences, the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics, and the Chronobiology and Sleep Institute. His research focuses on the regulation and function of sleep and fatigue, exploring these phenomena through the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans. Raizen's work investigates the universal behavioral states of quiescence, including sleep, and aims to understand their core functions and molecular regulation. He studies sleep-like states in C. elegans, such as lethargus, which shares similarities with sleep in other animals, and examines how genetic regulation influences these states. His research also extends to stress-induced sleep and sickness behavior, involving neuropeptides and specific neurons that promote sleep, which has implications for understanding fatigue during illness. Raizen's contributions include identifying novel sleep regulators and elucidating mechanisms underlying sleep and behavioral quiescence, addressing fundamental questions about why sleep evolved and its biological significance.

Research topics

• Biology
• Neuroscience
• Medicine
• Cell biology
• Psychology

Selected publications

• Behavioral States

  Genetics · 2020-10-01 · 95 citations

  reviewOpen accessCorresponding

  Abstract Caenorhabditis elegans’ behavioral states, like those of other animals, are shaped by its immediate environment, its past experiences, and by internal factors. We here review the literature on C. elegans behavioral states and their regulation. We discuss dwelling and roaming, local and global search, mate finding, sleep, and the interaction between internal metabolic states and behavior.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A salt-induced kinase is required for the metabolic regulation of sleep

  PLoS Biology · 2020-04-21 · 65 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Many lines of evidence point to links between sleep regulation and energy homeostasis, but mechanisms underlying these connections are unknown. During Caenorhabditis elegans sleep, energetic stores are allocated to nonneural tasks with a resultant drop in the overall fat stores and energy charge. Mutants lacking KIN-29, the C. elegans homolog of a mammalian Salt-Inducible Kinase (SIK) that signals sleep pressure, have low ATP levels despite high-fat stores, indicating a defective response to cel…

  PublisherDOI

• Beyond the symptom: the biology of fatigue

  SLEEP · 2023-05-24 · 42 citations

  reviewOpen access1st author

  A workshop titled "Beyond the Symptom: The Biology of Fatigue" was held virtually September 27-28, 2021. It was jointly organized by the Sleep Research Society and the Neurobiology of Fatigue Working Group of the NIH Blueprint Neuroscience Research Program. For access to the presentations and video recordings, see: https://neuroscienceblueprint.nih.gov/about/event/beyond-symptom-biology-fatigue. The goals of this workshop were to bring together clinicians and scientists who use a variety of rese…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• RPamide neuropeptides NLP-22 and NLP-2 act through GnRH-like receptors to promote sleep and wakefulness in C. elegans

  Scientific Reports · 2020-06-18 · 26 citations

  articleOpen access

  Sleep and wakefulness are fundamental behavioral states of which the underlying molecular principles are becoming slowly elucidated. Transitions between these states require the coordination of multiple neurochemical and modulatory systems. In Caenorhabditis elegans sleep occurs during a larval transition stage called lethargus and is induced by somnogenic neuropeptides. Here, we identify two opposing neuropeptide/receptor signaling pathways: NLP-22 promotes behavioral quiescence, whereas NLP-2…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A robotic system for automated genetic manipulation and analysis of<i>Caenorhabditis elegans</i>

  PNAS Nexus · 2023-07-01 · 10 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is one of the most widely studied organisms in biology due to its small size, rapid life cycle, and manipulable genetics. Research with C. elegans depends on labor-intensive and time-consuming manual procedures, imposing a major bottleneck for many studies, especially for those involving large numbers of animals. Here, we describe a general-purpose tool, WormPicker, a robotic system capable of performing complex genetic manipulations and other tasks b…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01NS064030

  NIH · $1.7M · 2015

• NIH Grant R21NS091500

  NIH · $429k · 2018

• NIH Grant R03AG042690

  NIH · $74k · 2015

Frequent coauthors

• Haim H. Bau

  University of Pennsylvania

  40 shared

• Jinzhou Yuan

  Research Institute of Dallas

  34 shared

• Christopher Fang‐Yen

  The Ohio State University

  26 shared

• Nicholas F. Trojanowski

  University of Pennsylvania

  15 shared

• Matthew D. Nelson

  14 shared

• Young‐Jai You

  The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

  12 shared

• Matthew S. Kayser

  University of Pennsylvania

  10 shared

• Gihan Tennekoon

  Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

  9 shared

Education

• BA

  University of Texas at Austin

  1989

Similar researchers at University of Pennsylvania

• John Q. Trojanowskih-296
• Craig B. Thompsonh-277
• Daniel J Raderh-236