Why do we need sleep? How are sleep states initiated, maintained, and ended? How does sleep impact normal brain functions? What roles does sleep play in neurological and psychiatric diseases? The goal of our research is to understand the circuit, cellular, and molecular mechanisms underlying sleep regulation in both normal and diseased brains.
RESEARCH AREAS
SLEEP AND MEMORY​
Sleep has long been proposed to function in consolidating memory. We aim to understand the molecular, cellular, and circuit mechanisms that link sleep and memory. In particular, we are searching for sleep-specific neural activity that might be involved in momery consolidation.
NEURAL CONTROL OF SLEEP​
We apply a multidisciplinary approach including electrophysiology, calcium imaging, optogenetics, chemogenetics, pharmacology, viral-based neural tracing, molecular biology, and mouse genetics to study the neural mechanisms that control sleep states.
SLEEP AND DISEASE​
Sleep problems are common in patients with neurological and psychiatric disorders. In collaboration with other faculty at Columbia, we are interested in understanding the relationship between abnormal sleep and brain diseases. We mainly focus on epilepsy.
