Sleep is a basic biological need of mammals, and has a broad significance for society.

- Sleep has a rich cultural history, full of myths and legends. More
- Insufficient sleep affects mental and physical health. More
- Insufficient sleep is a cause of major human accidents. More
- There are more than 70 types of sleep disorders, affecting 15-20% of the population. More
- The health costs arising from sleep disorders are comparable to
  those arising alcoholism and Alzheimer’s disease. More
- Sleep can be trained in Schools. More
- Pills reducing sleep need rank amongst modern life-style drugs. More
- Sleep is now thought to facilitate learning and memory. More

Amongst all organs, the brain is the one most fundamentally affected by sleep: we sleep because the brain sleeps. However, the roles of sleep for brain function are still largely enigmatic.

Our long-term goal is to better understand the roles of sleep for brain function.

We think that major strategies towards this goal are to address, in brain centers responsible for information processing and for learning:
a) the consequences of insufficient sleep on neuronal function
b) the molecular and neuronal mechanisms accompanying sleep states

More details on RESEARCH pages