RG Neuropsychiatric Sleep Disorders

The research group “Neuropsychiatric Sleep Disorders” studies the origin, pathophysiology and therapy of neuropsychiatric sleep disorders. Doing this we pursue two main focusses: On the one hand investigations of the neurobiology and psychology of sleep disorders, especially of chronic insomnia disorder, aim at an improved understanding of etiological models resulting in an improvement of therapeutic strategies. Furthermore, we investigate sleep-related neurobiological correlates of psychiatric disorders. This approach is motivated by the concept that changes in sleep architecture constitute a window to the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders and thus may add to their pathophysiological understanding.

Our current interests are:

• Deficient sleep spindle activity in schizophrenia: Effect on cognitive function (sleep-dependent memory consolidation) and underlying genetic origin (in cooperation with the Department of Genetic Epidemiology in Psychiatry)
• Mechanisms of circadian rhythm disorder in etiological models of psychiatric disorders (in cooperation with the Hector Institute for Translational Brain Research (HITBR))
• Mechanisms of impaired vigilance regulation in chronic insomnia – evidence for transdiagnostic arousal disorder?
• Cognitive correlates of hyperarousal in insomnia disorder; further development of the disorder-specific psychotherapeutic approach; contribution of metacognitive strategies
• Genetic origin of chronic insomnia disorder (in cooperation with the Department of Genetic Epidemiology in Psychiatry)
• Pathophysiology of other neuropsychiatric sleep disorders such as restless legs-syndrome, central disorders of hypersomnolence and circadian sleep-wake rhythm disorders