THE COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE OF WAKING, SLEEPING AND DREAMING
Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Massachusetts Mental Health Center
J. Allan Hobson, M.D., Robert Stickgold, Ph.D., Roar Fosse, Ph.D., Matthew Walker, Ph.D., Jose Louis Cantero, Ph.D., Mercedes Atienza, Ph.D., Amir Mazur, M.D., Ph.D., Edward Pace-Schott, M.A.
This laboratory conducts human studies of sleep, cognition and dreaming. Studies include (1) sleep dependent cortical plasticity as seen in auditory evoked potentials, (2) the nature of hippocampal theta rhythms during REM sleep measured with quantitative intracranial EEG recordings, (3) Studies of the role of sleep, including naps, on learning and memory consolidation,(4) the effects of cocaine on sleep and sleep-dependent cognitive processes, (5) fMRI changes during the sleep onset period, and (6) the quantitative analysis of dream reports collected in various stages of sleep and their comparison to experience samples collected during waking.
Key words: sleep, REM, memory, learning, EEG, cognition, dreams
Grant support NIMH 48,832 (AH): State Dependent Aspects of Cognition, NIDA 11.744 (AH): Drug Abuse, Sleep and Cognition.
Program Site: Massachusetts Mental Health Center; Collaborator: Ken Nakayama, Dept. of Psychology, Harvard University - napping study; Michael Kahana. Brandeis University and Joseph Madsen, Harvard Medical School/Boston Children's Hospital - intracranial EEG study; Margaret O'Connor, Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center - Dreaming and amnesia; Gottfried Schlaug, Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center - fMRI study; Marian Fischman, Columbia University - cocaine study.
Program director: J. Allan Hobson, M.D.
Contact person: Mr. Michael Delnero; Laboratory of Neurophysiology; M.M.H.C.; 74 Fenwood Rd.; Boston MA 02115; voice (617)626-9477; FAX (617) 734-7851; e-mail michael_delnero@http://hms.harvard.edu
Training opportunities: Opportunities exist for both undergraduate honors students and post-doctoral fellows.
Current number of undergraduate trainees supported by program 4
Current number of post-doctoral trainees supported by program 5
Approximate number of new trainees entering each year 5
Representative publications:
Hobson, JA. The Dreaming Brain. New York: Basic Books, 1988.
Hobson, JA. Sleep and dreaming. Journal of Neuroscience. 1990; 10:37-382.
Stickgold R, Pace-Schott E, Hobson, JA. A new paradigm for dream research: mentation reports following spontaneous arousal from REM and NREM sleep recorded in a home-setting. Consciousness and Cognition. 1994; 3:16-29.
Stickgold R, Hobson JA, Fosse R, Fosse M. Sleep, learning and dreams: Off-line memory reprocessing. Science. 2001; 294:1052-1057.
Stickgold R, James L, & Hobson JA. Visual discrimination learning requires post-training sleep. Nature Neuroscience. 2000; 2:1237-1238.