How does light influence the circadian clock, sleep and health? On 20 and 21 May 2022 we will accompany the day with lectures and light measurements at the St. Margarethen Observatory in Basel.

We will cover various topics, such as how (day)light affects the internal clock, what role the moon plays, and how the body reacts when no light can be perceived through the eyes.

Admission is free and no registration is required.

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On the second week of April, the LIGHTCAP consortium gathered in Eindhoven University of Technology for presentations, training, Case Studies and networking opportunities. This event was the third and first live Lightcap Season School. Find more information about our LIGHTCAP projects here.

Looking for participant: we aim to examine whether taking caffeine acutely and daily can influence reward learning processes compared to placebo.

Investigator: Dr. Yu-Shiuan Lin, Eliane Pflugi, & Jana Kopp.

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On 10 December 2021, Dr Christine Blume from the Centre for Chronobiology and Monika Angerer (University of Salzburg) received the Christian Doppler Prize of the State of Salzburg (Austria) for their joint work on circadian rhythms in severely brain-injured patients.

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We are very excited to announce that we launched our new Integrative Human Circadian Daylight Platform (IHCDP) on September 1^st, 2021. The interdisciplinary platform will integrate and comprehensively fuse basic, applied and clinical aspects of human circadian daylight research to improve circadian health, quality of life and well-being across the lifespan. The IHCDP platform is financially supported by the Velux Foundation Switzerland (https://veluxstiftung.ch/) for 4 years.

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Delightfully, Dr. Yu-Shiuan Lin is awarded 2-year SNSF Posdoc.Mobility Fellowship (from April 2022 on) to conduct a PET-MRI project examining the interaction between adenosine and dopamine systems at Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, USA. This is a continuing chapter from her previous PET-MRI training in the SNSF Doc.Mobility Fellowship.

We are excited to announce that Basel Symposium on Sleep & Circadian Rhythm disorder is back! This year we have invited Prof. Radhika Basheer from Harvard Medical School as our keynote speakers, together with our guest speakers Prof. Aleksandar Videnovic (Massachusetts General Hospital) , Dr. Ulrich Hemmeter (Psychiatric Hospital St. Gallen), and Dr. David Elmenhorst (Forschungszentrum Jülich). Find more details about our program here on Neurex and register to join us!

Time: November 18, 2021 – online

Credits SSSSC: 3
Credits SGPP/SNG: 4 each

For the project “Retinal mechanisms underlying caffeine effects on the human circadian system”, Dr. Carolin Reichert has been awarded the Borbély-Hess Fellowship by the Swiss Society for Sleep Research, Sleep Medicine and Chronobiology (SSSSC). Together with Dr. Manuel Spitschan (University of Oxford), Carolin will investigate if caffeine changes the sensitivity to light of specific circadian photoreceptors and if it changes pupil size and thereby retinal illumination. This study advances our mechanistic understanding of how light affects human physiology and behaviour and how these effects are modified pharmacologically by caffeine intake.

In August 2021, Dr. Christine Blume has been awarded a prestigious Ambizione fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF; approx. CHF 930'000). From April 2022 on, she will be studying the effects of (natural) daylight and physical exercising (i.e., hiking) on circadian rhythms and sleep in a four-year project. The project also includes a position for a PhD candidate, which will be advertised in autumn 2021.

Photo: Universität Basel, Christian Flierl.

The current edition of the Sleep Medicine Textbook of the European Sleep Research Society ESRS can be ordered now. The authors of the chronobiology chapter are Prof. Christian Cajochen and Corrado Garbazza, MD.