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- Vlad Vyazovskiy Laboratory
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- Hertford College Profile
- Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute
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The mystery of sleep
The Bridge 2021, Hertford College Magazine, Pages 10-13
Vladyslav Vyazovskiy
PhD
Professor of Sleep Physiology
- Director of Graduate Studies
In the last decades a vast empirical and theoretical knowledge about sleep mechanisms has been accumulated. Surprisingly, the function of sleep still remains elusive. Moreover, in place of the long-standing question “why do we sleep?” now comes a more fundamental one: “what is sleep?”
Among the key features of sleep are: a) the occurrence of slow waves in NREM sleep and theta waves in REM sleep on the EEG, b) the regular alternation between NREM and REM sleep episodes; and c) the slow homeostatic process that tracks sleep-wake history. The neurophysiologic substrates underlying these phenomena differ considerably and have been investigated in great detail. For example, much is known about cellular and network mechanisms underlying the slow oscillation (Crunelli and Hughes, 2009; Harris and Thiele, 2011) and about the neuroanatomy and neurochemistry of subcortical circuits regulating NREM and REM sleep (Brown et al., 2012; Jones, 2005; Saper et al., 2010). Furthermore, mathematical modelling has been essential for providing formal framework to investigate the global sleep-wake dynamics (Borbély and Achermann, 2005). While much has been learned about each of these phenomena in isolation, little has been done to reconcile the processes occurring at these “micro” and “macro” scales in a unified coherent framework.
Our aim is to understand the mechanisms governing the spatio-temporal dynamics of brain activity during sleep. This will help us to understand not only what sleep is, but also why it is necessary.
Recent publications
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Intracellular chloride regulation mediates local sleep pressure in the cortex.
Journal article
Alfonsa H. et al, (2022), Nat Neurosci
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Tinnitus: at a crossroad between phantom perception and sleep
Journal article
MILINSKI L. et al, (2022), Brain Communications
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Human lesions and animal studies links the claustrum to perception, salience, sleep, and pain.
Journal article
Atilgan H. et al, (2022), Brain
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Re-examining extreme sleep duration in bats: implications for sleep phylogeny, ecology and function.
Journal article
Harding CD. et al, (2022), Sleep
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Psilocin acutely alters sleep-wake architecture and cortical brain activity in laboratory mice.
Journal article
Thomas CW. et al, (2022), Transl Psychiatry, 12