This month's Research Grand Rounds features Dr. Ihori Kobayashi, who serves as a National Research Council Senior Research Associate in the Behavioral Biology Branch at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Dr. Kobayashi will discuss "Can Blocking the Orexin System Enhance Sleep’s Benefits to Therapeutic Exposure for PTSD?"

Abstract: Dr. Kobayashi is National Research Council Senior Research Associate in the Behavioral Biology Branch at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Previously, she served as Research Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Howard University, where she was a GHUCCTS KL2 scholar and then recipient of an individual K-series award from the NIMH. Dr. Kobayashi’s translational research, which includes both pre-clinical and clinical  approaches, focuses on the roles of sleep in the development of, and recovery from, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This clinical and translational research talk will share Dr. Kobayashi’s innovative work examining whether blocking the orexin system augments effects of exposure-based treatment for PTSD by altering sleep.

Research Grand Rounds are sponsored by the Georgetown-Howard Universities Center for Clinical and Translational Science (GHUCCTS) and MedStar Health Research Institute to bring together our diverse clinical and research communities to share research that spans disciplines and stages of translation to improve individual and community health.

For more information, please contact research@medstar.net or visit our Research Grand Rounds tab on our Seminars and Workshops page.