Sleep Science Podcast

We've gathered the NaPS lab to answer all your fascinating questions on all things sleep! A perfect bitesize episode to get stuck into the marvellous world of sleep.  1. How does sleep deprivation affect mental health? - Answered by Martha Wawrzuta Bunney, B. G. , Bunney, W. E. (2013). Mechanisms of Rapid Antidepressant Effects of Sleep Deprivation Therapy: Clock Genes and Circadian Rhythms. ...

In this episode, we welcome neuroscientist Michele Bellesi from the University of Camerino to explore the fascinating world of glial cells and their dynamic role in sleep.  Michele guides us through the four types of glial cells: Astrocytes: Regulators of synaptic function and help form the blood brain barrier (BBB) Oligodendrocytes: Crucial for myelination and fast signal transmission Microglia:...

Can sleep help us unlearn biases and make our memories more positive? Implicit biases are unconscious stereotypes that influence our judgments and decisions - like assuming a particular gender for a specific job role. But what if we could change these biases? In this episode, we explore how manipulations of sleep might help reshape our implicit attitudes. We speak with Professor Xiaoqing Hu, a lea...

We're joined by Hongi Ngo, who developed a revolutionary technique for manipulating sleep oscillations during his PhD.  Closed-loop Auditory Stimulation (CLAS), which uses bursts of pink noise which are carefully timed to a particular phase of an existing brain oscillation to either boost or dampen the target oscillation.  It has been used to selectively strengthen or weaken memories, improve...

How are memories represented in the brain and how can we model this? Professor Anna Schapiro from University of Pennsylvania as we discuss her work on computational modelling of sleep and memory. In this episode, we discuss several kinds of Neural Network models as well as diving into the history of Jay McClleland's Complementary Learning Systems theory and Anna's recent work on combinin...

How does our sleep change as we age and what could this mean for memory and cognition? In this episode, we discuss with Professor Rebecca Spencer her research  exploring how our sleep patterns evolve over the course of our lives.  We explore the phenomenon of infantile amnesia - why we can't remember our earliest childhood experiences - and unpack the theories behind it. We discuss how hippoc...

In this deep dive episode, we look at how sleep onset can help creativity.  With our amazing guest speakers, Professor Bob Stickgold, Dr Adam Horowitz, Professor Delphine Oudiette and Dr Celia Lacaux, we take a look at their work on creativity, dreams and N1 sleep.  Together, we discuss different definitions of creativity, what defines N1 and what it is about N1 that makes it prime time for creati...

Sleepwalking, sleep talking, night terrors - how do they occur and why do some people have them more than others? Join us as we discuss with Professor Francesca Siclari her work looking at non-REM parasomnias and the link to dreaming. We discuss the various forms that non-REM parasomnias can take, how they differ between adults and children and what the potential consequences of them can be.  Find...

To kickstart season 3 of the Sleep Science Podcast, we have the lab behind the podcast, NaPS Lab, to answer some great sleep-related questions from our listeners. Thanks to everyone who sent in questions! 1. What is lucid dreaming? - Answered by Mo Abdellahi Lucid dreaming - Stephen LaBerge, 2009 Induction of self awareness in dreams through frontal low current stimulation of gamma activity  Real-...

For our end of season special, we have the rest of the NaPS lab in to answer a number of exciting sleep-related questions from our listeners. These touch on a range of different subjects from sleeps involvement in weight gain to alcohol's effect on sleep. Thanks to those who sent in questions! List of Questions: 1.      What is it in general anaesthetic that completely prevents a patient from...

In this episode, we talk with Professor Chiara Cirelli from the department of Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin. We begin by hearing about how she first got interested in sleep research, and particularly about her time as a medical student at the University of Pisa where she worked on the noradrenergic system using cat models. We then look at the importance of using cross-species models in...

In this episode, we interviewed Professor Reto Huber, who leads a research group at the University Children’s Hospital, Zurich. Reto’s interests encompass sleep disorders, development, synaptic plasticity and regeneration.  In this episode we discuss local sleep, a process whereby different parts of the brain express different depths of sleep or wake at different times. We consider the relationshi...

In this episode we talk to  Professor Manuel Schabus  and Professor Kerstin Hoedlmoser from the Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Salzburg.  In this episode, we discuss their work on the development of sleep-in babies, first discussing what baby sleep is like and how it differs from older children and adults in regard to activity and sleep stages and specifically sleep spindle...

In this episode, we talk to Professor Wenbiao Gan from the Neuroscience and Physiology and Skirball Institute at New York University School of Medicine. Professor Gan tells us about how he started to become interested in studying sleep and its impact on learning and memory. He talks about intriguing and hands-on ways to assess the formation and elimination of dendritic spines in  the mouse cortex,...

In this episode, we interviewed Colin Espie, one of the world’s leading authorities on sleep and insomnia. Colin is Professor in Sleep Medicine at the University of Oxford, and  Clinical Director of the Experimental & Clinical Sleep Medicine Programme, Sleep & Circadian Neurosciences Institute, again at the University of Oxford.   Professor Espie talks about sleep problems, explains why ac...

In this episode,  we talk to Professor Tore Nielsen from the University of Montreal and Professor Mark Blagrove from Swansea University. In part 2 of this two part episode, we carry on our discussion about nightmares and talk about Tore's work on imagery rehearsal. A process where the dreamer rehearses their nightmares finding solutions to them in waking life in order to reduce stress and anx...

In this episode, we talk to Dr Tristan Bekinschtein from the Cambridge Consciousness and Cognition Lab and discuss his research looking into the boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness.    We talk about his work in the loss of consciousness in vegetative state patients, sedation and sleep and his findings regarding brain markers which indicate when we change between these two states. We...

In this episode,  we talk to Professor Tore Nielsen from the University of Montreal and Professor Mark Blagrove from Swansea University. In part 1 of this two part episode, we talk about how both our guests became interested in the world of sleep and dreams  and then discuss what we actually dream about, from emotional REM dreams to non-rem dreams. We also talk about the different methods of colle...

Today's episode is a little bit different. We're marking the end of our first season by roping in the rest of the NaPS lab to answer listeners' sleep-related questions. Thanks to everyone who sent questions in! List of questions: Why do we use the term ‘sleeping like a baby’ when babies don’t, in fact, sleep? - From Jaime Jenkins How do hormones affect sleep? - From Beth Lee Why do...

Have you ever wished you could control your dreams? In this episode we learn about new approaches letting people do exactly that. We also delve into important benefits lucid dreaming could have, such as helping reduce nightmares or helping process traumatic memories. In addition, we explore how lucid dreams provide a window into understanding consciousness and people's inner worlds, and touch...

In this episode, we talk to Dr Daniel Bendor from University College London. Daniel's work focuses on rodent studies of place cells in the hippocampus.  We discuss the phenomena of memory replay in which place cell activity mimics  patterns of activity that occurred while the rodent was performing a task in wake.  We also discuss how this process can be manipulated using targeted memory react...

In this episode, we talk to Professor Björn Rasch about the pioneering of a process called Targeted Memory Reactivation (TMR). TMR is a tool which can be used to selectively consolidate learnt material during sleep by pairing it with sensory stimuli such as odours or sounds during learning.  This process can be used to manipulate memories during sleep and improve memory consolidation. We also disc...

In this episode we take a neuroethological approach to sleep, and discover why songbirds are such a good model system for studying sleep's role in learning. These include advantages like songbirds' sleep-wake patterns and sleep architecture being more similar to human's than rodents', the fact that songbirds are strongly motivated to learn their songs, which can then be easily...

We humans have long wondered if it is possible to learn while we sleep but, experimental findings on this have often been disappointing. You will now be happy to learn that the tide has turned in this respect, since we now have firm proof that it IS indeed possible to learn new information while you sleep.  However - the information your brain can pick up in this manner might not exactly go as eas...

In this episode we examine how sleep differs between species to get some clues about  what sleep actually is as a phenomenon. How have marine animals solved the problem of sleeping when they regularly need to come up for air? And how do amphibians adapt their sleep architecture from life at sea to life on the land? What can mice running on their wheels tell us about what may be happening in our br...