Giulio Bernardi

Adaptive introgression in modern human circadian rhythm genes - npj Biological Timing and Sleep npj Biological Timing and Sleep - Adaptive introgression in modern human circadian rhythm genes

"This research paves the way for future studies to explore the intricate connections between circadian rhythms, mental health, and immune function, potentially leading to innovative approaches in chronomedicine and personalised healthcare."
www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Out now in @commsbio.nature.com!

We studied brain-heart interactions during mind wandering and mind blanking.

Mind blanking is associated with a greater heart/brain decoupling, complicating the idea of an attentional switch between external & internal environments!

🧠🔄🫀🧪

Sleep pressure and slow-wave-rich NREM sleep exert distinct effects on cerebral vasomotion and on brain pulsations driven by respiratory and cardiac forces. Heightened sleep pressure (following 35 h of wakefulness) promotes vasomotion (yellow box). Slow-wave-rich NREM sleep enhances brain pulsations driven by the respiratory and cardiac cycles—more so in gray and white matter than in the ventricles (red boxes). The respiration- and cardiac-driven brain pulsations also intensify with deeper sleep (N3 > N2) and correlate with EEG delta power, which is a measure of slow-wave activity (light vs. dark red boxes).

Sleep supports brain health partly by regulating fluid dynamics to clear waste. @ulvlarsen.bsky.social &co probe the relation between #sleep & fluid movement in the human #brain, finding that #SleepPressure & intensity have distinct effects on brain pulsations @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/3XQWCL6

New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Fan Nils Yang, Jeff H. Duyn, et al:

Increased intra-thalamic and thalamo-cortical functional connections during human REM sleep: Insights from a two-night EEG-fMRI study

doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...

Don’t miss the final #eSleepEurope2025 track: Basic Animal on 11 December!

🎉Join us! Register now: https://ow.ly/WVZB50Xvc5M

#eSleepEurope2025 #ESRS #basicanimal

Figure from Alnes et al., 2025

​Our new paper on auditory processing in NREM sleep is online! We study how iERP and HFA responses in the temporal lobe are modulated by slow waves of sleep:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Congratulations to Sigurd Alnes for his brilliant work and to the entire team!

Neural correlates of consciousness in an auditory no-report fMRI study Dellert et al. use functional magnetic resonance imaging and inattentional deafness to identify the neural basis of conscious auditory perception in humans. Their results reveal a dominant role of sti...

👂🧠NCC in an auditory no-report fMRI study 🧠👂
now out in @currentbiology.bsky.social @cellpress.bsky.social !

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Using inattentional deafness, we show that awareness of task-irrelevant sounds mainly activates stimulus-specific sensory brain areas.

Attentional failures after sleep deprivation are locked to joint neurovascular, pupil and cerebrospinal fluid flow dynamics - Nature Neuroscience Yang et al. show that moments of failed attention we experience after sleep deprivation reflect brief ‘sleep-like’ episodes in the brain, corresponding to a brain- and body-wide event with altered bra...

Attentional failures after sleep deprivation are locked to joint neurovascular, pupil and cerebrospinal fluid flow dynamics

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Falling asleep follows a predictable bifurcation dynamic - Nature Neuroscience Li et al. propose a conceptual framework to study the phenomenon of falling asleep based on electroencephalogram data. They show that a tipping point marks the brain’s nonlinear wake-to-sleep transiti...

Falling asleep follows a predictable bifurcation dynamic

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Effects of RBD Medications on Dream Content: A Critical Review of Evidence REM sleep behavior disorder, often an early marker of α-synucleinopathies, is characterized by the loss of REM-related muscle atonia and the occurrenc…

New review from the Lab: Bontempi et al., "The Effects of RBD Medications on Dream Content: A Critical Review of Evidence"

💊 "Available evidence offers only limited support for clonazepam, melatonin, and pramipexole in reducing disturbing dream content"

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Incorporation of complex narratives into dreaming Statement of Significance This study introduces a systematic approach to assessing dream incorporation by linking presleep experiences to dream content usi

There is a link between dreaming and memory consolidation. In this experiment, researchers put this theory to the test by recording dreams after #REM and #NREM sleep. academic.oup.com/sleep/articl...

Neuroscience of Dreaming Summer School

Neuroscience of Dreaming

Summer School - May 4-8, 2026 - Lucca, Italy

Applications open: nodsummerschool.imtlucca.it

Convergent Control of NREM Sleep and Anesthesia by Prefrontal Layer 5 Extratelencephalic Neurons The cortical mechanisms governing the transition from consciousness to unconsciousness remain poorly understood. While most cortical neurons are suppressed during NREM sleep and anesthesia, we identif...

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Hemispherotomy leads to persistent sleep-like slow waves in the isolated cortex of awake humans Hemispherotomy is a neurosurgical procedure for treating refractory epilepsy by disconnecting a significant portion of the cortex. This study shows that the isolated cortex exhibits EEG patterns resem...

Colombo et al., Plos Biology, "Hemispherotomy leads to persistent sleep-like slow waves in the isolated cortex of awake humans"

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Distinct cortical profiles underlie the common reportability of thought-free experiences Mind blanking (MB) is a mental state of seemingly no reportable thought content. The question of how we can entertain no thoughts while awake is challenging for the study of spontaneous thinking. By c...

🚨Preprint alert 🚨. Our work “Distinct cortical profiles underlie the common reportability of thought-free experiences” is available at www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1.... 🧵A thread ...

Induction of cortical ON/OFF periods in awake mice fulfills sleep functions Can animals obtain core benefits of sleep while remaining awake? In mammals, slow-wave sleep is characterized by synchronized neuronal activity alternating between ON and OFF periods. Slow-wave activi...

Kort Driessen, Fabio Squarcio, Giulio Tononi, Chiara Cirelli

"Induction of cortical ON/OFF periods in awake mice fulfills sleep functions"

doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Principles for proper peer review

New post in @jocnforum.bsky.social by Early Miller @earlkmiller.bsky.social: "Principles for proper peer review"

doi.org/10.21428/8e6...

In our keynote lecture, we are honoured to welcome Prof. Dr. Marcello Massimini, who is addressing “Slow waves during wakefulness and the network consequences of brain injury.”

#eSleepEurope2025

New position, new social media account. After 5 fantastic years in Tuebingen, I moved to @yale.edu and the @wutsaiyale.bsky.social this summer - which means that I’ll be recruiting PhD students and postdocs. Please help me to spread the word and see current opportunities below 👇

** We have up to TWO funded PhD positions available in our lab!! Apply below to find new ways to enhance memory👇 Pls retweet **

Deadline: 2nd December

1. Cross-species closed-loopTMR: tinyurl.com/bddu4tp6

2. TUS and TMR in humans:
tinyurl.com/jjws5ctj

Happy to chat to interested applicants.

why I’m happy to admit to my research failures, and you should too - United Kingdom News Beep The open-science movement has promoted the sharing of scientific protocols, statistical-analysis programs and data files. These efforts have undoubtedly made

why I’m happy to admit to my research failures, and you should too

https://www.newsbeep.com/uk/173671/

The open-science movement has promoted the sharing of scientific protocols, statistical-analysis programs and data files. These efforts have…

Sleep stage mixing is associated with poor prognosis in early Parkinson’s disease - npj Parkinson's Disease npj Parkinson's Disease - Sleep stage mixing is associated with poor prognosis in early Parkinson’s disease

New paper! 🧠💤

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Led by Pauline Dodet - @dreamteamicm.bsky.social

We show that #sleep stage mixing predicts poor prognosis in #Parkinson.

Stage mixing = intrusions of wake-like activity during sleep, and vice versa. Estimated with hypnodensities extracted from PSG.

The @dreamteamicm.bsky.social has launched an online survey about the things you experience when you fall asleep!

Everyone is different, so we need you to tell us!
It will take only 20 minutes, but it will mean a lot to dream researchers like us!
redcap.link/DriftingMinds

Please, share!
🧠💤

Daily dynamics of the temporal orientations of mind wandering: chronotype matters! Abstract. Theoretical accounts link mind wandering with attentional and executive processes, both of which exhibit time-of-day fluctuations influenced by c

🚨 New article in #NCONSC

Daily dynamics of the temporal orientations of mind wandering: chronotype matters!
academic.oup.com/nc/article/2...

#consciousness #sleep
🧠🧪💤

📣 November's Abstraction seminar is all set too!
🗓️ 19 November, 11:30 - 12.30 (CEST)
📍 Bologna (in presenza) or 💻 Microsoft Teams (link: shorturl.at/xW7mF )
🎆 Join us, details in the figure!
👉 Save the date & spread the word!
✨
@abstractionerc.bsky.social

It's that time of the year! Come join us in sunny San Sebastian for three days of neuroscience, collaboration & (ofc) a lot of fun! :)

Cannabis and sleep architecture: A systematic review and meta-analysis Cannabis use for sleep is increasingly prevalent, yet its effects on sleep architecture remain unclear. This systematic review and meta-analysis exami…

Cannabis and sleep architecture: A systematic review and meta-analysis

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A follow-up to this SRS podcast:

sleepresearchsocietypodcast.podbean.com/e/srs-podcas...

🚨 2 Postdoc openings in Neuroscience – Liège, Belgium 🚨

We are recruiting for a project on brain development & autism that includes:

⚡ Neuropixels recordings
⚡ Opto/chemo
⚡ Behavior
⚡ Neural network modeling

If you know someone, tag them or RT for visibility! 🙏
www.fens.org/careers/job-...

🚀 Excited to share our lab’s contributions at #ICON2025 in Porto!
Catch talks & posters from
@aprilzhao.bsky.social
@asanchezcorzo.bsky.social
@fabian31415.bsky.social
@estebanbt.bsky.social

Neuroscience of Dreaming - Summer School May 4-8, 2026 @ IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Italy

🧠 The official website of the Neuroscience of Dreaming Summer School (4–8 May 2026, IMT School, Lucca, Italy) is now live: nodsummerschool.imtlucca.it

👉 Check out the confirmed speakers + our program overview. Detailed schedule and registration coming soon!