Sleep’s role in synaptic homeostasis and restoration of encoding capacity

• Applicant: Daniela Ramirez Butavand, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 569125200

Understanding the role of sleep in human cognition has developed from a niche endeavor to a broad field of modern neuroscience. Due to extensive research, it is well understood that sleep plays a critical role in memory processing and cognitive function. At the same time, exercise, with its multifaceted impact on brain health, has attracted attention for its potential to independently enhance memory and sleep. Utilizing exercise to enhance sleep features and accompanying plastic processes will facilitate understanding the homeostatic mechanisms of sleep. The sleep and synaptic homeostasis hypothesis (SHY) posits a crucial role of sleep in synaptic regulation and neuronal plasticity. According to SHY, sleep serves as a period of synaptic downscaling, i.e., a renormalizing mechanism essential to avoid saturation of brain resources that would prevent subsequent learning. In line with this, sleep enhancement has been shown to improve post-sleep learning. Considering this knowledge, our primary objective is to modulate sleep by exercise and, thereby, understand the mechanisms during sleep that facilitate brain plasticity and memory encoding. By employing advanced neuroscientific techniques, such as magnetic resonance spectroscopy, diffusion-weighted imaging, and high-density EEG, we aim to elucidate the neurophysiological processes mediating the relationship between exercise, sleep, and memory encoding.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigators: Privatdozent Dr. Gordon Feld; Professor Dr. Simon Steib