Research

We do sleep measurements at Meilahti campus in Helsinki. We have two comfortable, individual sleeping rooms which have a home-like atmosphere. They provide full privacy while simultaneously capturing detailed measurements of the sleeping brain. We use state-of-the-art sleep technology such as high density EEG allowing 128 measurement channels. The lab is part of the SleepWell -research program infrastructure at the Faculty of Medicine.

We focus on the microstructures of sleep and dynamics of brain activity through sleep period. We build technology to fine-grained sleep analytics, machine learning applications, and develop novel experimental paradigms to study the interrelations of sleep and human behavior.

Disruptions in sleep are present in almost all affective and mood problems. The SleepEmotion project, funded by the Academy of Finland, investigates sleep as an offline processor of emotions and memory. REM sleep in specific has a role in decreasing accumulation of negative affect, thus assisting in maintaining mental well-being. This project goes beyond the current state-of-the-art by exploring central and open questions regarding REM sleep and by opening new perspectives on the role of REM sleep in emotion regulation in anxious-prone and non-anxious individuals. It widens the research scope to experimental manipulation of REM and NREM sleep by targeted emotional memory reactivation during the sleep.

In 2015 we initiated a population-based cohort among all 16-17-year-old inhabitants of Helsinki. The first phase of the study concentrated on very late sleep rhythms and delayed sleep phase disorder. We built a sleep coaching protocol to help adolescents regulate their sleep rhythms. Funding for the data collection phase was provided by the Academy of Finland. Currently we are investigating how sleep affects physical activity, a project funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture. We are also inviting participants from this cohort to the SleepEmotion study. This offers a unique opportunity to track longitudinal patterns of sleep from adolescence to young adulthood.

Our group collaborates with other research groups, teams and industrial actors in various projects, where sleep is involved. Our close collaboration includes clinical studies at HUS Helsinki University Hospital.

During years 2018-2022, we have collaborated with Finnish wearable industry, such as Polar, FirstBeat, and Oura. We have an ample experience in conducting multimethod sleep research among participants of all ages. Please contact anukatriina.pesonen@helsinki.fi for further questions.

If you want to include sleep measurements in your project, please be in touch!