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Body and Brain
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The talks will be in English.
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Photographer: Alexander Brandt
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Prof. Magdalena Götz
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich
Turning Cells into Neurons - New Approaches to Repair the Brain
Understanding how neurons are made is important not only to unravel how the immense complexity of a human brain is formed during development, but also to understand how to reactivate this process after brain injury. The Götz lab is investigating how to make new neurons from other brain cells as a new way to repair the brain after injury.
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Prof. Till Roenneberg
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich
The World is my Sleep Lab
To understand sleep, we have to investigate it in context – in the real world. To achieve this, we need new tools and as many volunteers as possible from all over the world. Internet-based platforms have to accumulate databases of actimetry, sleep-logs, light measurements and psychophysical tests - all linked to each other. We are following this approach in what we have called the "Human Sleep Project" (HSP). It consists of three levels, two of which have already been implemented.
HSP I consists of a database with so far more than 260,000 entries of the Munich ChronoType Questionnaire, an instrument that probes human sleep-wake behaviour.
HSP II – an Internet platform that allows keeping sleep logs effortless via twitter – is currently being launched.
HSP III is still under construction. It will allow thousands of people to upload their activity measurements to an Internet platform in order to receive detailed feedback about their daily behaviour, including sleep and its structure.
The results from the HSP initiative will help us understand sleep and will provide an objective measure for sleep quality.