Dragana Rogulja, Ph.D.

Title: Associate Professor of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School.

The Aim

The Rogulja Lab studies how our bodies regulate sleep and why it is essential for health.

The Impact

We spend roughly a third of our lives asleep, yet the biological reason we cannot survive without sleep remains unanswered. The Rogulja Lab’s research brings us closer to that answer. Their studies show that sleep deprivation can be lethal because it allows damaging molecules to accumulate in the gut. This work also reveals how diet influences the gut and, in turn, directly affects sleep depth. By tracing the molecular and circuit-level mechanisms that govern sleep, the lab’s findings have implications for understanding and treating sleep disorders that affect tens of millions of people and are linked to increased risk of depression, cardiovascular disease, and dementia. In a parallel research program, the Rogulja Lab also studies the neural circuits mediating motivation.

A Closer Look

Article: Untangling the Mystery of Sleep , Harvard Medical School, April 2023. This piece profiles neurobiologist Dragana Rogulja’s work using fruit flies and mice to probe why sleep is essential for survival and how the sleeping brain disconnects from the outside world. Her research uncovers a surprising gut–brain connection: protein-sensing cells in the gut release a peptide that signals to dopamine neurons in the brain to reduce arousability, deepening sleep and suggesting new ways to protect the body from sleep loss.

Article: The Science of Love , Harvard Medical School, February 2025. The article explores how love—romantic and otherwise—shapes the brain and body, showing that close bonds are biologically crucial for health. It explains how both the rush of new love and the pain of loss arise from specific neural and hormonal systems that scientists are now mapping in detail.

Contact

Email: Dragana_Rogulja@hms.harvard.edu
Lab website: roguljalab.hms.harvard.edu