Home > Program Faculty >Chiara Cirelli Laboratory
Dr. Cirelli’s main research interest concerns the function of sleep and the functional consequences of sleep loss. She approaches studies of sleep at the intersection between the cellular and the system’s level. Thus, her laboratory uses a combination of approaches, from genetics in fruit flies to whole-genome expression profiling in invertebrates and mammals, to behavioral and EEG analysis in mice and rats. Specific lines of work include:
- Identification of genes involved in sleep regulation in Drosophola using forward genetics.
- Molecular correlates of sleep and spontaneous wakefulness.
- Molecular correlates of sleep deprivation.
- The synaptic homeostasis hypothesis of sleep.