Sakiko Honjoh

We are interested in homeostatic sleep/wake regulation in behavioral vigilance states (e.g., mice sleep deeper after when they stayed awake longer) and in cortical neural activity (e.g., a cortical region sleeps deeper when the region has been active during prior waking).

It is becoming clearer that brain regions contribute to sleep/wake regulation to a different extent. Several wake, and nonREM sleep and REM (REM; rapid eye movement) sleep-promoting or -inhibiting areas have been identified. To understand the nature of the homeostatic regulation, using mice, we investigate what kind of changes the critical sleep/wake regulating centers undergo during persistent waking and subsequent sleep.

As for the cortical activity, we focus on slow wave, a hallmark of NREM sleep EEG. Though it is the best marker for sleep need so far and it plays important roles in sleep-dependent memory consolidation, the underlying neural circuits remain largely unknown. Currently we investigate the role of thalamic matrix cells in slow wave generation.