Courtney Wright, a biomedical sciences graduate student at the School of Medicine Columbia, earned an award for her poster presentation at Discover USC 2025.

Learn more about her research:
Events like chronic stress and infection during pregnancy negatively impact how the baby’s brain develops, increasing the risk for neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and neuropsychiatric illnesses like schizophrenia. Individuals with autism or schizophrenia have problems with sleep throughout life. Dr. Pocivavsek’s lab studies how elevations in a small molecule called kynurenic acid during pregnancy, which occurs naturally from stress and infections, may cause these sleep problems for children. The researchers currently wanted to understand how sleep problems from elevated kynurenic acid during pregnancy develop over time.

To study this, researchers examined sleep in rats whose mothers had a normal diet or a diet that elevated kynurenic acid during pregnancy. They also tested how well the offspring recovered after an extended period of being awake. The findings show that rats whose mothers were exposed to kynurenic acid during pregnancy struggled to stay awake and sleep deeply as they matured from childhood to adulthood and had less rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is important for learning and memory. They also struggled to recover from being kept awake. Biomarker analysis points to higher levels of inflammation and metabolites following sleep loss.  The scientists hope to continue studying biomarkers of inflammation and metabolism and find ways to reduced kynurenic acid in the brain to help improve sleep in the future.