Physiological role of Tau in sleep

The Tau protein is a very abundant protein in the central nervous system, most importantly the neurons. Tau is a protein which can interact with microtubules for stabilisation and so influences the axoplasmic transport in neurons. Furthermore, Tau has a role in mRNA translation through interaction with ribosomes, and has a role in behaviour and cognition. Tau is a phosphoprotein with dozens of phosphorylation sites, which can result in different phosphorylation patterns. Hyperphosphorylated Tau and its accumulation is associated with neurodegeneration by the formation of Tau-tangles. These filament accumulations is observed in diseases as Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia. Much research has been done on the pathophysiology of these diseases and the role of Tau herein, but the physiological role of Tau is underappreciated and thus not well studied. Therefore, we aim to study the physiological role of Tau in neuronal function and synapse plasticity. We aim to investigate how sleep affects the function and phosphorylation of Tau, what the contribution of the sleep-wake driven temperature changes in the brain is in this phosphorylation, and what the role hereof is in sleep-dependent memory, synaptogenesis and network formation. For this, we will utilize different in vivo and in vitro models.