About Us

The Huff laboratory is a member of the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington, D.C. Their primary research focus is the neurophysiology of airway protective behaviors.

Discoordination of airway protective behaviors-- swallow, cough, and laryngeal reflexes-- and breathing increases the risk of aspiration, creating acute infections such as pneumonia, and chronic conditions including bronchiectasis, suppurative lung disease, and respiratory failure, which can result in considerable morbidity and mortality, and in juveniles a failure to thrive. This is a remarkable commonality in most pulmonary, sleep, and neurological disorders and exacerbates underlying conditions increasing the frequency of hospitalizations. We use genetic mouse models of both healthy and diseased in both anesthetized and awake and alert states, to determine the neuronal populations and cell types responsible for airway protective behaviors, their interaction and coordination with breathing, and how this differs in diseased states.

Memberships:

• American Physiological Society
• Society for Neuroscience