Sleep, Plasticity, and Conscious Experience

Traditionally, sleep and wakefulness have been considered as two global, mutually exclusive states. However, this view has been challenged by the discovery that sleep and wakefulness are locally regulated and that islands of these two states may often coexist in the same individual. Importantly, the local regulation of sleep seems to be key for many of the known functions of this physiological state, including the maintenance of brain functional efficiency, the consolidation or stabilization of new memories and the modulation of mood and emotional reactivity. Local changes in brain activity during sleep may also explain the emergence of particular conscious experiences in the form of dreams, and may modulate the level of sensory disconnection that is essential for a restorative sleep. On the other hand, during wakefulness, the reiterated activation of specific brain areas may lead to a state of functional fatigue, characterized by the appearance of local, sleep-like episodes. These events seem to have important consequences for behavior and cognition and may contribute to explain the known effects of sleep loss. Given these premises, alterations in the local regulation of sleep and wakefulness may represent the pathophysiological basis for symptoms observed in many sleep disorders, but also in some psychiatric or neurological disorders.

Contact: giulio.bernardi@imtlucca.it

Visiting Researchers and Professors

Interns and Guest Students

• The relationship between slow waves and conscious experience during sleep (supported by an ERC-STG) - click HERE for info

• The application of natural language processing to dream content analysis (supported by multiple grants) - click HERE for info

• The behavioral and neural correlates of local sleep-like episodes during wakefulness

• The cortical and subcortical correlates of sleep slow waves and arousals

• The anatomo-functional bases of sensory disconnection during sleep

• Bergamo D, Handjaras G, Picchioni D, Ricciardi E, Legendre G, Özbay PS, de Zwart JA, Duyn JH, Bernardi G, Betta M. Thalamic involvement defines distinct slow-wave subtypes in NREM sleep. Communications Biology, 2026

• Elce V, Bontempi G, Scarpelli S, Pedreschi B, Pietrini P, Gennaro LD, Bellesi M, Bernardi G, Handjaras G. Individual traits and experiences predict the content of dreams. Communications Psychology, 4(69), 2026

• Michalak A, Marzoli D, Pietrogiacomi F, Bergamo D, Elce V, Pedreschi B, Mosca G, Navari A, Emdin M, Ricciardi E, Handjaras G, Bernardi G. Immersive NREM2 dreaming preserves subjective sleep depth against declining sleep pressure. Plos Biology, 24(3): e3003683, 2026

• Wong W, Herzog R, Andrade KC, Andrillon T, de Araujo DB, Arnulf I, Ataei S, Avvenuti G, Baird B, Bellesi M, Bergamo D, Bernardi G, Blagrove M, […], Tsuchiya, N. A dream EEG and mentation database. Nature Communications, 16, 7495, 2025

• Grollero D, Bergamo D, Federici A, Basanisi R, Bottari D, Betta M, Bernardi G. Affective information modulates slow-wave and arousal-like responses during NREM sleep. Communications Biology. 2025 Jul 17;8(1):1060

• Elce V, Bergamo D, Bontempi G, Pedreschi B, Bellesi M, Handjaras G, Bernardi G. The individual determinants of morning dream recall. Communications Psychology. 2025 Feb 18;3(1):25

• Ordali E, Marcos-Prieto P, Avvenuti G, Ricciardi E, Boncinelli L, Pietrini P, Bernardi G, Bilancini E. Prolonged exertion of self-control causes increased sleep-like frontal brain activity and changes in aggressivity and punishment. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 121 (47) e2404213121, 2024

• Center for Sleep and Consciousness - Giulio Tononi, Chiara Cirelli - University of Wisconsin. Madison, WI-USA

• Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche - Francesca Benuzzi, Stefano Meletti - Università di Modena e Reggio-Emilia. Modena, Italy

• Brain and Sleep Research Laboratory - Michele Bellesi, Luisa De Vivo - University of Bristol. Bristol, UK

• Donders Sleep & Memory Lab - Martin Dresler, Sarah Schoch - Donders Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging. Nijmegen, Netherlands

• Centre d’investigation et de recherche sur le sommeil - Raphael Heinzer - Lausanne University Hospital. Lausanne, Switzerland

• EOC Neurocentro - Mauro Manconi, Anna Castelnovo - Istituto di Neuroscienze cliniche della Svizzera Italiana. Lugano, Switzerland

• CNR-FTMG-Pisa - Michele Emdin , Claudio Passino, Alberto Giannoni - Istituto di Fisiologia Clinica CNR. Pisa, Italy

No open calls at this time