Our lab was founded in 2023 to investigate how our arousal system governs sleep. Sleep
is not homogenous – rather, we recently demonstrated that a slow arousal rhythm
is woven into sleep controlling sleep phases and processes related to memory
consolidation. Thus, in order to get healthy sleep and optimal cognitive
function, we need a healthy arousal system. However, the arousal system is
delicate and easily affected by common factors such as stress and aging.
Our research aims to explore how these changes affect sleep and memory and how we may use arousal measures to find new biomarkers and therapeutic targets for healthy sleep.
Techniques
We mainly perform in vivo measurements in freely moving mice. Our techniques are centered around EEG/EMG-based sleep measurements combined with the expression of genetically encoded fluorescent indicators and optogenetic manipulations. We focus on learning and memory tasks to assess the memory consolidating potential of sleep. Furthermore, we look at neuronal synchronization and autonomous markers using EEG- and LFP recordings.
Projects
The role of sleep in dementia
Neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease are characterized by sleep disturbances. Even general aging experience the same type of sleep disruptions. All these conditions are characterized by an early loss of arousal-promoting neurons. We explore how this early loss affects the memory consolidation potential of sleep and whether this plays a role in dementia development.
Biomarkers for memory-optimizing sleep
We explore novel biomarkers for assessing arousal activity during sleep with the aim of providing a tool for early diagnoses of mild cognitive decline or dementia. Currently, patients with dementia are diagnosed at later stages, which limits the effect of therapeutic intervention.
Sleep-targeted therapeutic treatment
We use sleep-targeted manipulation of the arousal systems to determine whether we can restore sleep quality and cognition. We focus on both invasive and non-invasive approaches.
Arousal and the autonomous system
We are interested in the interlinkage of the arousal system within the brain and the peripheral autonomous system in order to explore new biomarkers and therapeutic targets.
Clinical sleep data
We collaborate with clinical researchers to compare clinical datasets to our preclinical findings in order to increase the translational potential of our findings.
Funding
