The American Heart Association has honored postdoctoral research fellow Santiago Clocchiatti-Tuozzo, MD with both the Bernard J. Tyson Career Development Award and the Stroke Underrepresented Racial and Ethnic Groups Travel Grant for excellence in neurology and cerebrovascular disease research. Together with other leading scientists from around the world, Dr. Clocchiatti-Tuozzo will be formally recognized at the International Stroke Conference in Dallas, Texas for his outstanding contributions to stroke research.
Dr. Clocchiatti-Tuozzo is co-mentored by Thomas Gill, MD and Guido Falcone, MD, ScD and is conducting research on determinants of brain health at the Yale Pepper Older Americans Independence Center and the Falcone Lab.
The award honors Dr. Clocchiatti-Tuozzo’s work published in Stroke, “Sleep Duration is Associated with Clinically Silent Brain Injury in Middle-Aged Persons without Stroke,” in which researchers provide an association between suboptimal sleep duration and silent brain injury, ascertained as worse neuroimaging brain health profiles in middle-aged adults.
Dr. Clocchiatti-Tuozzo and his team demonstrate not only that sleep is directly associated with brain health, but also that suboptimal sleep durations correlate with unhealthier brains before clinical outcomes are evident.
“These findings lay the foundation for future research focused on understanding how the modification of sleep duration during middle-age can improve neurological clinical outcomes in advanced age,” observed Dr. Clocchiatti-Tuozzo, regarding the clinical implications of these results.
The other team members on this research project are: Cyprien Rivier, MD, MS; Daniela Renedo, MD; Victor M. Torres-Lopez, MS; Sam Payabvash MD, Kevin N. Sheth, MD; Thomas M. Gill, MD; and Guido J. Falcone, MD, ScD.