How does our brain produce dreams?
At our Center for Sleep Investigation and Research, Professor Francesca Siclari has been awarded two grants between 2021 and 2022, including a prestigious ERC Starting Grant, for her research on mechanisms at the origin of dreams.
If sleep disorders are now the subject of many researches, the mechanisms behind dreams are still little studied.
Today, at the Centre for Sleep Investigation and Research at the CHUV, Francesca Siclari is investigating the signature of dreams in brain activity in order to better understand how the brain generates dreams. She will do so by influencing brain activity with pharmacological agents and acoustic stimulations that are time-locked to brain waves, and observing the effects of these manipulations on dreams. This will allow her to understand which brain networks and structures are activated during dreams.
In parallel, she is studying a population of patients suffering from sleep disorders - or parasomnias - who act out their dreams. Her research team can thus observe their dreams "in real time" and relate their behaviors to their cerebral activity, recorded by more than 250 sensors.
Project Ambassadors (CHUV)
Prof Francesca Siclari
Centre for Sleep Investigation and Research
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The Foundation CHUV aims to get the community involved in supporting its treatment, research and training missions. The philanthropic gestures received at the Foundation aim to optimise patient care and develop scientific knowledge in the field of health for the good of all. Patients, their family and friends, the community and the medical and care staff are at the heart of its activities.