Research

Sleep, Memory,
and the Resting Brain

Detailed literature reviews, cross-paper syntheses, and descriptions of my ongoing research interests in sleep neuroscience. Click any card to read the full piece.

Literature Review
Slow-Wave Sleep & Memory Consolidation: Where Do We Stand?
November 2024 · 14 min read
Covers 2018–2024 literature on NREM-dependent memory consolidation, with focus on disagreements in the hippocampal replay literature and what they mean for systems consolidation theory.
NREM Memory Hippocampus
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Literature Review
REM Sleep and Emotional Memory: A Contested Hypothesis
September 2024 · 10 min read
An examination of Walker's sleep-to-forget, sleep-to-remember hypothesis against more recent neuroimaging and pharmacological evidence that challenges its clean narrative.
REM Emotion Amygdala
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Literature Review
Glymphatic Clearance During Sleep: Mechanism or Myth?
July 2024 · 11 min read
Critical review of the glymphatic hypothesis, from Nedergaard's foundational work to recent studies challenging the convective flow model.
Glymphatic Clearance NREM
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Cross-Paper Synthesis
Sleep Spindles: Bridging Thalamocortical Dynamics and Learning
October 2024 · 18 min read
A synthesis across 11 papers linking spindle density to next-day learning gains, interrogating methodological inconsistencies and proposing a more careful reading of the causal evidence.
Spindles Thalamus Learning
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Cross-Paper Synthesis
Circadian Disruption and Neurodegeneration: A Multi-System View
August 2024 · 20 min read
Synthesizing findings from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and ALS literature on circadian rhythm disruption as a shared mechanistic pathway.
Circadian Neurodegeneration Systems
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PhD Research Direction
Sleep Microstructure & Individual Differences in Memory
Ongoing interest
I'm interested in how individual variation in sleep spindle frequency, density, and coupling with slow oscillations predicts memory consolidation outcomes across different populations.
Spindles Individual Differences PhD
Methodology Focus
Targeted Memory Reactivation During Sleep
Ongoing interest
Auditory cueing during sleep to selectively strengthen encoded memories — a method I want to use to probe the boundary conditions of sleep-dependent consolidation.
TMR Methods Causal