NAPS Lab (Neuronal – Astrocytic Pathways for Sleep Laboratory)

Reaching for the caffeine to stay awake? We have all felt tired. All of us have some excuse as to why we haven't had enough sleep. Was it an unanticipated Netflix binge or are you in the early days of adjusting to your newborn's crazy sleep patterns?  The problem is that consecutive nights of lost sleep, irrespective of cause,  negatively impacts health and often leads to poor brain function & impaired productivity.

So why is sleep essential? Sleep or sleep-like behaviour is evolutionarily important as most organisms have some form of it, no matter if you are a worm or a person. Sleep permits the crucial reshaping of neuronal connections to ensure the brain can constantly remodel memories and regenerate for the next day's demands. Yet how does the brain know if we are sneakily cutting down those crucial hours of shut-eye? How can the brain sense sleep need?

NAPSlab aims to study how the brain senses sleep need and to identify which brain cells are responsible for translating the need for sleep into actual sleep time. What makes sleep deeper or more efficient after sleep loss? What are the relationships between neuronal circuitry and astrocytes that shape sleep architecture. To begin to answer these questions, we measure the sleep patterns of mice and combine  transcriptional profiling, viral tracing, chemogenetics, and optical recording/manipulation to identify, characterise, observe, and manipulate cell populations involved in sleep.