[1047] Neuropsychiatry of sleep and dreams

A main goal of our research is to combine basic sleep/neuroscience research with clinical applications, notably for the study and treatment of psychiatric disorders. More specifically, the current projects combine the use of (1) neuroscientific methods, such as high-density electroencephalography, polysomnography and automatic sleep assessment at home, to study specific biomarkers of mental disorders, as well as the neural correlates of dreams, and the efficiency of psychotherapeutic techniques, (2) clinical/interventional approaches, such as imagery rescripting, targeted memory reactivation and rocking bed stimulation, in order to induce positive emotional states and enhance  sleep in healthy individuals and psychiatric patients, and (3) the development of new methods for dream content analysis and phenomenology, which take into account cultural relativism, evolutionary aspects, philosophical methods, emotion regulation and personality traits. Such methods will allow us to better describe the phenomenological properties and functions of the dreaming experience and of psychiatric symptoms across different individuals and cultures. My studies include national and international collaborations and aim to render Geneva as the main hub for sleep and psychiatric neuroscience research in Switzerland and abroad.

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