On Zoom or YouTube
https://clinicalneuroanatomyseminars.com/next
Title
Being awake while asleep, being asleep while awake
Abstract
Sleep is classically presented as an all-or-nothing phenomenon. Yet, there is increasing evidence showing that sleep and wakefulness can actually intermingle and that wake-like and sleep-like activity can be observed concomitantly in different brain regions. I will here explore the implications of this conception of sleep as a local phenomenon for cognition and consciousness. In the first part of my presentation, I will show how local modulations of sleep depth during sleep could support the processing of sensory information by sleepers. In the second part, I will show how the reverse phenomenon, sleep intrusions during waking, can explain modulations of attention. I will focus in particular on modulations of subjective experience and how the local sleep framework can inform our understanding of everyday phenomena such as mind-wandering and mind blanking. Through this presentation and the exploration of both sleep and wakefulness, I will seek to connect changes in neurophysiology with changes in behaviour and subjective experience.