Sleep plays a vital part in our everyday life and affects our daily mood, performance, social life and well-being. Sleep is the product of an interaction between multiple brain structures and neurotransmitter systems.

Two main regulatory processes are involved in producing daily sleep-wake cycles that permits us to stay awake and alert during the day and to sleep throughout the night: A circadian process, which adjusts the period of sleep to a certain time relative to the environmental light-dark cycle, and a homeostatic process, whereby a wake-depended build-up of sleep propensity increases during the day and dissipates during sleep.

Our research interests focus on the understanding of the contributions to both normal and dysfunctional regulation of sleep at the behavioural, molecular and environmental level. Our lab undertakes multidisciplinary and translational studies in both the real world and the sleep laboratory.

Research interests: body clock and regulation of sleep; sleep in cataract, dementia, bipolar spectrum and schizophrenia; actigraphy; sleep EEG