For a 10-year period starting in the mid-70s, the residence now known as Jerry House served as the site of a series of pioneering sleep studies: Undergraduates and members of the community lent themselves for study during “summer sleep camps” at the house, named for the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia. Until that time, the field of sleep research - still in its infancy – had centered on nighttime events, but researcher MARY CARSKADON, now a professor of psychiatry & human behavior at Brown University, focused these camp studies on the role of sleep in daytime function. The participants’ sleeping and waking were manipulated, recorded and examined; and the end result was important data on sleep restriction and sleep deprivation, and the establishment of clinical protocols still used today.
“Much of the essential, pioneering sleep work at Stanford was done in these camps,” sleep expert RAFAEL PELAYO recently told SCOPE blog writer MICHELLE BRANDT. “The work had great consequences on the development of the field of sleep research here and around the world.”
This weekend, WILLIAM DEMENT, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, who established the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Center at Stanford in 1970, joined Pelayo, Carskadon and others in honoring this early, important research and unveiling a wood-and-glass commemorative plaque to be housed there. (Writer Patrick May was there and reported on the event for the San Jose Mercury News.) The plaque outlines the significance of the studies and highlights the successful careers of Carskadon and Dement.
Read Brandt’s full post on the Medical School’s SCOPE blog.