“Sleep and Synaptic Homeostasis”
Dr. Cirelli will discuss the rationale underlying The Synaptic Homeostasis Hypothesis (SHY), which states that sleep is the price we pay for brain plasticity. In addition she will summarize electrophysiological, molecular, and ultrastructural studies in flies, rodents, and humans that confirmed SHY’s main predictions, including the recent observation, obtain in mice using serial block face scanning electron microscopy, that most cortical synapses grow after wake and shrink after sleep.