Center for Sleep and Consciousness

Ruth Benca, MD, PhD
University of Wisconsin - Madison
School of Medicine
Department of Psychiatry
6001 Research Park Blvd
Madison, WI 53719
Tel: (608) 263 6162
Fax: (608) 265 2953
e-mail: rbenca@med.wisc.edu

Dr. Benca is a professor in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry and the associate chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Universityof Wisconsin-Madison, in Madison, Wisconsin.

Dr. Benca’s research has focused on several aspects of sleep behavior, including the acute effects of light-dark cycles on sleep and wakefulness and the relationship between sleep abnormalities and psychiatric disorders, in particular the effects of sleep on mood regulatory systems. She has served as principal investigator on numerous neuroscience studies and is the author or coauthor of more than 100 journal articles, book chapters, and abstracts. Dr. Benca is on the editorial board of the journal Sleep and has reviewed manuscripts for a number of journals, including Sleep, Science, the Journal of Neuroscience, and Biological Psychiatry.

Active in several national societies, Dr. Benca is a past president of the Sleep Research Society and was a recent chairman of the Joint Operations Committee of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies. She is a frequent invited speaker in the area of sleep disorders and was recently selected to participate in the Hedwig van Amerigen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) Program for Women.

Dr. Benca received both her doctorate in pathology and her medical degree from the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, where she also completed her residency in psychiatry and fellowship in sleep disorders medicine.

Some significant publications
Prichard JR, Fahy JL, Obermeyer WH, Behan M, Benca RM. Sleep responses to light and dark are shaped by early experience. Behav Neurosci 118(6): 1262-73,2004.

Rattenborg NC, Mandt BH, Obermeyer WH, Winsauer P, Wikelski M, Benca RM. Migratory sleeplessness in a songbird: The white-crowned sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys gambelii). PLoS Biology, 2(7): 924-936, 2004.

Steininger TL, Kilduff TS, Behan M, Benca RM, Landry CF. Comparison of hypocretin/orexin and melanin-concentrating hormone neurons and axonal projections in the embryonic and postnatal rat brain. J Chem Neuroanat 27(3): 165-181, 2004.

Martinez-Gonzalez D, Obermeyer W, Fahy JL, Riboh M, Kalin NH, Benca RM. REM sleep deprivation induces changes in coping responses that are not reversed by amphetamine. Sleep. 27(4): 609-17, 2004.

Pizzagalli DA, Oakes TR, Fox AS, Chung MK, Larson CL, Abercrombie HC, Schaefer SM, Benca RM, Davidson RJ. Functional but not structural subgenual prefrontal cortex abnormalities in melancholia. Mol Psychiatry 9: 393-405, 2004.

Prichard JR, Stoffel RT, Quimby DL, Obermeyer WH, Benca RM, Behan M. Fos immunoreactivity in rat subcortical visual shell in response to illuminance changes. Neuroscience 114(3): 781, 2002.

Pizzagalli DA, Nitschke JB, Oakes TR, Hendrick AM, Horras KA, Larson CL, Abercrombie HC, Schaefer SM, Koger JV, Benca RM, Pascual-Marqui RD, Davidson RJ. Brain electrical tomography in depression: The
importance of symptom severity, anxiety, and melancholic features. Biol Psychiatry 52(2): 73-85,
2002.

Parsons MJ, Benca RM, Brownfield MS, Behan M. Age-associated changes in the serotonergic system in rat superior colliculus and pretectum. Brain Res Bull 55(3): 435-444, 2001.

Pizzagalli D, Pascual-Marqui RD, Nitschke JB, Oakes TR, Larson CL, Abercrombie HC, Schaefer SM, Koger J, Benca RM, Davidson RJ. Anterior cingulate activity predicts degree of treatment response in major depression: Evidence from Brain Electrical Tomography Analysis. Am J Psychiatry 158(3); 405-415, 2001.

Stein MA, Mendelsohn J, Obermeyer WH, Amromin BA, Benca RM. Sleep and behavior problems in school age children. Pediatrics 107(4): 1-9, 2001.

Benca RM, Obermeyer WH, Shelton SE, Droster J, Kalin NH. Effects of amygdala lesions on sleep in rhesus monkeys. Brain Res 879(1-2): 130-138, 2000.