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We spend a third of our lives sleeping, and this podcast is all about understanding sleep. We know a lot about what the brain does in sleep, but we are just starting to understand why it does some of these things, and even more excitingly, how we can take full advantage of sleep and also manipulate it for our own ends. In each episode, neuroscientist Penny Lewis interviews a different sleep researcher, talking about a various aspect of sleep science. Topics include sleep physiology and medicine, circadian rhythm, how sleep impacts on our memories and creativity, Sleep Engineering for enhanced health and cognition, and the most recent technologies to promote sleep.©SleepSciencePodcast 2021. These materials may be downloaded for personal use only. They may not be shared, distributed or reproduced in any form or for any reason without express permission
28 Episodes
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1Can 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 leading researcher in the use of Targeted Memory Reactivation (TMR) during sleep to alter implicit b...
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 the immune response, reduce epileptic seizures, and even potentially to slow down age relat...
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 combining neural network modeling with EEG. Find out more about Anna Schapiro and her research group here. Li...
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 hippocampal development changes as we age and how this links to memory consolidation and sleep. We...
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 creative processing. Find out more about our guest speakers: Professor Bob StickgoldDr ...
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 out more about Francesca and her research group here. Here are links to some of the stud...
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, 2009Induction of self awareness in dreams through frontal low current stimulation of gamma activity Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep 2. Do dreams do anythi...
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 waking up mid-surgery? Is this a similar state to being in a deep sleep or is this di...
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 sleep research with flies, mice, rats and humans. We also discuss the different ways of using ...
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 relationship of local sleep to phenomena such as sleep walking and sleep talking, and Reto explains a s...
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 spindles and why we think this is. We also look at the difficulties of recording sleep i...
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, and how different experimental tasks like running backwards on a treadmill influence spin...
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 actively focusing on getting more sleep is not the best way to combat these issues. ...
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 anxiety around nightmares and find more control in their dream life. Then we move on to lucid dre...
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 also discuss his research showing that people tend to neglect the left side of the wor...
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 collecting dream reports and the positives and negatives of these methods. We go on to d...
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 some people talk in their sleep? – From Christopher Reynolds Can meditation before bed help you have de...
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 on the symbolism often found in dreams. This episode was produced by: Dominic Carr If you'd l...
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 reactivation (TMR). From this we discuss how the TMR instead of triggering a reactiv...
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 discuss how TMR can interfere with consolidation and consider the pros and cons of this techni...
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