Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioural Neurobiology

Research Aims

Early human development is characterized by rapid and tremendous psychological and neurophysiological changes due to maturation and learning. Specifically, compared with adults, infants and children show a distinctly increased need for sleep. We hypothesize that this is partly related to the increased need to form memory. Against this backdrop we investigate how sleep and memory consolidation develop from infancy to childhood, as well as the interplay between sleep, learning, memory, and emotion processing during this period. Additionally, we investigate sleep and memory formation renatally, in the fetus, using fMEG.

Children sleep longer and deeper than adults - and certain sleep phases are more pronounced in them than in adults. At the same time, children have to learn and process so many new things every day. How sleep supports memory formation in children is still largely unclear.

Children Sleeplab