Adrien Peyrache

During my undergraduate studies devoted to physics, chemistry, mathematics and biology, I became more and more curious about a mysterious and largely unknown machine: our brain. I discovered that there were many ways to face the complexity of it, and I decided to do what I've been trained for: experiments, signal processing and data analysis. More precisely, my research focuses on how memory functions are formed in the brain and what are the neuronal bases of such processes. Sleep may be a determinant phase of our live during which memory is stabilized: indeed, during this "off-line" period, newly encoded information is replayed and consolidated in our already existing - and dense! - knowledge of the world and of ourselves. How does such a complex system evolve when a new memory trace is encoded? We are lucky enough not to remember all of our experiences. How is, therefore, relevant information selected? What is exactly the role of sleep in this process? These issues are at the core of my scientific project that I tried to summarize and explain here. You can find also the links to my academic publications if you have already a good background in science... if not, those studies have been dissaminated in the media where I tried to explain my work for a general audience (unfortunately, most of these materials are in french).