Research

If we can no longer remember what we have been, or memorize what is to come, can we be the same as we have been?

Memory is one of the crucial brain functions that support our daily life. Here I would like to introduce one of our studies on memory.

In our laboratory, we are working on the hypothesis that "spontaneous brain network activity during sleep contributes to the memory consolidation of events experienced during the day time.

For the measurement of brain activity, we combine fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) and EEG (electroencephalogram) to acquire high temporal and spatial resolution. We also detect specific memory-related activity during sleep and test whether boosting these activity patterns by transcranial current stimulation (tCS) can promote memory consolidation.

We are developing our research together with many collaborators, and are especially in close contact with Professor Nakahara's laboratory at Kochi University of Technology in terms of personal exchange, discussion and mutual use of research equipment.

In collaboration with Professor Hasegawa at Niigata University, we start a project to test a causal relationship between sleep and memory consolidation in monkeys.