Stuti Jaiswal, MD, PhD

Some neurocognitive diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, affect more women than men. There are also gaps in our understanding of the impact of sleep on women’s cognitive health. Scientists at the Scripps Research Digital Trials Center have launched the REFRESH- Neurocognitive Outcomes in Women study (REFRESH-NOW), a new research project aimed at better understanding sleep and brain health in women with the help of fitness trackers. REFRESH-NOW, led by Stuti Jaiswal, a physician-scientist specializing in sleep research, will use wrist-worn activity trackers and smartwatches to gather longitudinal data from women who are 55 and older over a three-year period. The goal of the study is to identify sleep-related risk factors, enabling for the development of better interventions.

Assistant Professor Stuti Jaiswal is a physician and sleep scientist. She's using new technology to study sleep patterns of thousands of people remotely. Here, she answers some common questions about sleep, like how many hours do you need? Do naps count? And what can shift workers do to avoid the health risks of poor sleep?

A good night’s sleep is one of the keys to feeling good the next day. But how do we know if we’re getting enough? Assistant Professor Stuti Jaiswal and her colleagues at the Scripps Research Translational Institute and the Digital Trials Center recently launched a study called REFRESH. It uses wearable data to track participants’ sleep. Since participants never have to go to a lab, researchers can see how they sleep over long periods of time, and gain insight into how sleep affects their health. As technology advances, and studies like refresh give researchers a better understanding of sleep, a day could come when everyone has the tools to sleep better.