08 October 2009 @ 16:00 - 17:00

Seminar on "Lessons Learned from Imaging the Sleep Deprived Brain" by Dr. Michael Chee, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School

Seminar Room, 8th Floor, Temasek Laboratories, 5A Engineering Drive 1, National University of Singapore

Abstract: Short-term total sleep deprivation results in cognitive decline in several cognitive domains and may be responsible for avoidable accidents and inappropriate decision-making. Functional MRI has shown negative effects of sleep deprivation on both online processing of information as well as offline consolidation of memories. The decline in attention when sleep deprived appears to be a cardinal cognitive deficit that affects visual processing, short and long term memory. The neural correlates of these state related changes tend to occur in the posterior part of the cerebral cortex involving parietal and extrastriate visual areas. The implications of these findings and what might identify those vulnerable to the effects of sleep deprivation are topics of active research.

Speaker: Dr. Michael Chee is Professor, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School and PI of the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab. He graduated as a medical doctor from the National University of Singapore in 1983. Further training in internal medicine and neurology was followed by a Fellowship in Epilepsy and Clinical Neurophysiology at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation where he developed an interest in magnetic resonance imaging and cognitive neuroscience. He was a special fellow at the Massachusetts General Hospital NMR Centre before setting up his lab. He built up his scientific credentials publishing some seminal papers on the functional anatomy of the bilingual brain. In 1993, he switched focus to cognition in the context of sleep deprivation and healthy ageing. He has first author publications, from work conducted in Singapore, in PNAS, J Neuroscience, Neuron, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, J Cog Neuroscience, Neuroimage, Neurology and Sleep spanning both basic science and clinical arenas. He sits on the editorial boards of Sleep, Brain Topography and The ScientificWorld.com He is supported by grants from BMRC, DSTA, National Medical Research Council, and National Institutes of Health.