QBI Neuroscience Seminar: The yin and yang of sleep and attention
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- Leonie Kirszenblat, Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland will host
The yin and yang of sleep and attention
Abstract:
Emerging evidence suggests that a key function of sleep is to optimise attention, yet the mechanisms underlying this are poorly understood. In this talk, I will discuss novel methods developed during my PhD to study sleep and attention in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, which I used to ask the question: how do sleep and attention regulate each other via neuronal circuits in the brain? I found that manipulating sleep, either by sleep deprivation or by altering expression of sleep-promoting molecules in specific brain circuits had opposite effects on selective attention, shifting the balance of focus and distractibility. Vice versa, sleep need was influenced by attention-like behaviour. Overall, this suggests that sleep and attention are interconnected brain states that regulate each other.
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