Hello, my name is Jean Carlo, and I am an international student from Peru. I moved to the United States three years ago and am currently pursuing my bachelor’s degree in medicine. Moving here has been an incredible experience, filled with opportunities that continue to inspire me every day. I have a strong passion for research and for helping others, which has guided much of my academic journey. In Dr. Porreca’s lab at the Department of Pharmacology, I study how pain affects sleep using mouse models. My research focuses on whether parabrachial Calca neurons cells that express the Calca gene encoding calcitonin gene related peptide (CGRP), a key peptide in migraine pathophysiology not only drive pain but also disrupt sleep. By using electroencephalogram (EEG) and electromyogram (EMG) recordings, I analyse brain activity to define sleep-wake stages and better understand how pain interferes with sleep, reflecting what occurs in human patients. This work aims to uncover insights that could lead to therapies improving both sleep quality and pain management. I am especially grateful to my mentors, Robson and Carol, for their invaluable guidance. Their support and insights have helped me develop new techniques, deepen my understanding of research, and grow as both a student and an aspiring physician researcher.
Transcript:
0:08: From KXCI Community Radio, this is Research Matters.
0:13: My name is Bridgitte Thum, and I have the honor and privilege of getting to sit with academic researchers from around our region.
0:20: Today we are welcoming a senior from the University of Arizona who’s majoring in medicine.
0:25: Welcome to Research Matters, Jean Carlo Marca.
0:28: Thank you.
0:29: Thank you.
0:29: I’m happy to be here.
0:30: How did you find yourself at the UA?
0:32: I was born and raised in Peru, so English is not my first language.
0:35: I got here 3 years ago.
0:37: I always wanted to find the best education I could possibly get, so that’s why I’m here.
0:41: What lab are you working in?
0:42: I am currently in Frank Pereca’s lab in the pharmacology department.
0:46: We do a lot of migraine studies.
0:48: I guess my main project was analyzing sleep.
0:51: What I do is basically sit in my computer and analyze the data that I have.
0:55: I fall in love with sleep and I have so many things to talk about it.
0:58: Sleep is a thing and the sleep quality is a completely different thing.
1:02: I don’t think the time you sleep matters and that’s like a huge statement probably, but it is breaking news.
1:10: Exactly.
1:11: So if you sleep 9 or 10 hours, but your sleep quality is really bad, then you’re going to be tired still.
1:16: The next day.
1:17: How do we get the good sleep?
1:19: It’s kind of like just imagine a sleep as if you’re driving a car with a stick shift.
1:23: You start from zero, neutral, that will be like you’re awake, and then you go to the first stage of sleep, which will be like N1, and then you go to the second stage and you will go to the 3rd stage and then you will dream and then you will wake up again, for example.
1:35: So a normal sleep cycle will be 90 minutes in a person.
1:38: If you keep waking up during the night and you don’t get to the deepest stage of sleep.
1:42: You’re gonna be tired the next day.
1:44: What do we need to do?
1:45: Just not get interrupted?
1:47: Technically, yes, I’m a sleep technician.
1:49: I work in a clinic where basically what we do is kind of like fix them.
1:53: We put masks on them, try to like give them like oxygen to help them breathe during the night, so they don’t keep waking up because of breathing problems, for example, or there’s also like a syndrome where it’s like you keep moving your legs.
2:05: And this awakeness that you have during the night, it’s because you’re moving your legs a lot.
2:10: So there’s also medicine that kinda like avoids that, so you can keep sleeping and be in that deep stage without being interrupted.
2:17: I always had this question of like, why do we dream, like, why do we dream?
2:21: And like nobody has an answer, like people have theories about it, they have, there is research about it.
2:26: But it’s super interesting when you look into it.
2:28: This is where we’re starting to get some mystical, magical ideas, you know, like what are dreams for?
2:33: I know like we need to dream because basically our body asks for this dreaming stage, which is called REM.
2:40: If we stop dreaming for 4 or 5 days in a row, we’re gonna dream the next day for a long period of time.
2:47: We’re gonna have multiple periods of where we’re dreaming.
2:50: That’s why I say that dreaming is important because somehow the body knows that you were not dreaming for a while and it’s asking you for that stage.
2:58: Once you graduate, what are you gonna do after that?
3:00: Before moving here, I was living in Argentina, and I attended medical school over there, and I’m still pursuing that dream.
3:06: It’s kind of hard to apply because since I’m not from here, they have laws that don’t allow international students to apply to their med schools, which is a little sad, but I’m still trying to find a way to like get my citizenship, like get my green card and try to stay here in Tucson and pursue medicine.
3:22: Oh yes, here’s to that.
3:24: I know you’d make a really great doctor.
3:26: Thank you.
3:26: You’re listening to Research Matters.
3:28: We’ve been talking with Jean Carlo Marca from the University of Arizona, studying the fascinating world of dreams in sleep and how they affect our everyday life.
3:39: Thank you so much for being here, Jean.
3:40: Really appreciate this conversation.
3:43: Thank you so much for having me here.
