Diana MartinezPh.D.
Neuroscientist, Physiologist Areas of expertise: Sleep, neural networks, hypertension More information “We live in a society that doesn’t sleep,” said Martinez, who suffers from insomnia and has seen healthy friends develop high blood pressure after years of working night shifts. The effect of sleep disturbance on cardiorespiratory dysfunction begins early. Research shows that children who experience sleep disorders are more likely to develop high blood pressure as adults. “It’s almost as if the lack of sleep is setting them up for hypertension,” Martinez said. In her lab, Martinez examines how the brain integrates signals during sleep to maintain normal blood pressure and heart function. Using rodent models, researchers can explore the brain changes that occur when patients develop hypertension due to irregular sleep. Through a project funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, Martinez is studying the effects of a high-salt diet on hypertension, which disrupts the normal 24-hour rhythm of blood pressure. A focus of this project is to teach people living in food deserts how to make healthy decisions when many of the options available are unhealthy. “It’s not just one thing that changes to set a mood for hypertension and heart dysfunction,” Martinez said. Using an integrated approach, he works to determine the contribution of individual cells, networks and brain regions to the whole animal. Since joining the medical school in 2021, Martinez and students in her lab have submitted a paper for publication and presented it at an international conference. Martinez was awarded an Editorial Fellowship with the Journal of Physiology and recently accepted a position on the Basic Cardiovascular Council of the American Heart Association. “Hypertension and heart disease have increased,” Martinez noted. “We need to understand how our current 24-hour society, poor diet and sleep disorders lead to hypertension. That way, we can develop methods to address these causes instead of treating the symptoms later.” Rowan University researchers are passionate about what they do. Find more at Meet our researchers.
