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.

Caffeine is an everyday drug which can disturb the human circadian timing system. We investigate whether this effect can be traced back to a change in the circadian processing of light-dark information. In a placebo controlled design, we specifically test if caffeine intake changes pupil size and sensitivity of intrinsically photosensitive ganglion cells. For our research project we are looking for a highly motivated master student with a strong interest in biological psychology, chronobiology and/or sleep research. The master project involves recruitment of participants, data collection (mainly in the evening hours), analyses as well as interpretation of results. Please do not hesitate to contact us in case of any questions. ***Please note that no positions are available at the moment***. PIs: Carolin Reichert and Manuel Spitschan.

ADoRe study is looking for two MSc students who are interested in doing an internship or a thesis in a topic of caffeine, reinforcement learning, and adenosine-dopamine interaction. In this double-blind randomized crossover study, we will investigate 1) whether reinforcement behaviors can be augmented by acute or daily caffeine intake, and 2) if the caffeine effect on reinforcement learning is preferentially through a direct or an indirect dopaminergic pathway.

Are you interested in molecular psychology and further clinical applications? Contact ys.lin@unibas.ch for more information!

This year, for the first time, a scholarship from the Prof. Dr. Max Cloëtta Foundation will go to a candidate from the UPK Basel. Corrado Garbazza, MD, research physician at the Center for Chronobiology at the UPK, will benefit from this valuable support. He will spend twelve months at the Harvard Medical School (HMS) in Boston from the end of next year. The program includes research work in various university hospitals of the HMS. After his stay in the USA, Dr. Corrado Garbazza intends to implement the expertise in sleep and circadian medicine gained during his stay at the UPK.