Nicolas Decat

When the mind isn’t busy, what does it do? My PhD takes the wake-to-sleep transition as a playground to understand how our mental life evolves across vigilance states. I like the idea of using big data and data-driven methods to uncover latent structures that are not captured by traditional methods. Also a big fan of naps, volleyball, and finding ways to make science feel cinematic. 

Portfolio: nicolasdecat.com

Selected publications

Decat, N., Le Coz, A., Sénéchal, J., Scellier-Dekens, I., de Verville, H., Herzog, R., Lejeune, F.-X., Arnulf, I., Andrillon, T., & Oudiette, D. (2026). Dream-like mental states can occur during wakefulness. *Cell Reports*. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2026.117237

Decat, N., Walter, J., Koh, Z. H., Sribanditmongkol, P., Fulcher, B. D., Windt, J. M., Andrillon, T., & Tsuchiya, N. (2022). Beyond traditional sleep scoring: Massive feature extraction and data-driven clustering of sleep time series. *Sleep Medicine*. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2022.06.013

Decat, N., Yokoyama, A., Windt, J., Tsuchiya, N., & Andrillon, T. (in press). Mind-wandering and creative incubation: An online replication and extension. *Royal Society Open Science*. Stage-1 accepted. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/MQ2H4