Eitan Schechtman

Isrw group photo

Still pumped up from yesterday's international sleep replay workshop! Provocative talks, engaging discussion groups & enthusiastic engagement by all attendees from undergrads to full professors. Stay tuned for info on the next one. And now, on to @cnsmtg.bsky.social. Check out our lab's posters!

💫 Dr Dori Grijseels, postdoc at MPINB Germany, is the 2026 ALBA-FKNE Diversity Awardee, for their outstanding leadership in advancing inclusive research practices and evidence-based advocacy for queer and trans scientists. Join us on 10 July at #FENS2026 for the award ceremony!

👉🏽 loom.ly/mTiT4f8

Sleep spindles promote hippocampal network downregulation during sleep Sleep is thought to globally downregulate neuronal network activity and synaptic connections enhanced during prior wakefulness and, in parallel, to up…

@currentbiology.bsky.social
I am very happy to share our latest paper, just published in @currentbiology.bsky.social! In collaboration with Olga Garaschuk's lab, we used in vivo 2P calcium imaging to investigate the role of sleep spindles in the hippocampus. 🧠💤
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Kansas Sends Letters To Trans People Demanding The Immediate Surrender Of Drivers Licenses "The legislature did not include a grace period."

This is bigotry, pure and simple.

open.substack.com/pub/erininth...

The Trump Administration is Testing Conversion Therapy By Medically Experimenting on Trans People in Prisons The Bureau of Prisons is subjecting trans people to conversion therapy and denying them care with the goal of helping them "recover." It's trying to prove dangerous conversion practices can work.

This is a test run, for when they use coercion to force all trans people into conversion therapy. Want rehab for your broken leg? Or insulin for diabetes? You'll have to detransition. transitics.substack.com/p/the-trump-...

Social, institutional, and political climates shape the experiences and careers of LGBTQIA+ neuroscientists worldwide LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and related identities) individuals in science face unique career challenges.…

Good timing!
Our paper just came out.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
@dgrijseels.bsky.social
@dpagliaccio.bsky.social

Just got desk rejected today for a preregistered study with N=140, by far the best-powered addressing this question. Why? Becuase the result were "too preliminary". Huh? Best guess is because the study found strong evidence for the null, and null results are still hard to publish

Registration for the workshop closes this Sunday (no extensions)! Come join us in what will be the biggest in-person ISRW to date!
#sleeppeeps #cns2026 @cnsmtg.bsky.social

Super cool!

Save the date for the 1st MEEP – Heidelberg Summer School on Memory and Sleep: May 31st to June 3rd
Keynote speakers: @marwimber.bsky.social @mgarvert.bsky.social & Dan Bendor
Sessions on:
memory processes
sleep & replay
analysis and stimulation techniques
www.zi-mannheim.de/forschung/ab...

plz rp

Job alert!!

We're looking for a Postdoc and two RAs on a 3-year project examining the effects of smartphones on sleep and mental health in adolescents. Details below:

RA: tinyurl.com/7h6zrz2k
Postdoc: tinyurl.com/ykmsk757

Please repost :)

That's the challenge of sleep research - there's no ground truth (unless you wake the ppt up, and even that doesn't capture nonconscious reactivation). One solution is to correlate with performance the other is to use causal techniques like TMR. It a hard, but not impossible, challenge to tackle

More generally, asking whether treatments like that improve the function of sleep assumes we know what that function is (or those functions are), and we don't (except for relieving sleepiness). How can you tell if X enhances Y without knowing what Y is?

But what do you mean by "perform"? I think most studies using SW entrainment examined memory improvement, but from a clinical standpoint like yours, you'd probably like entrainment to lead to more restorative sleep. I'm not sure many studies examined that (but I may be wrong here).

Its effects on sleep benefits are more controversial, though, and it's unclear if the entrainment actually generates SWs or just mimics their artificial manifestation in EEG/PSG. Second comment is more critical: Chuck McGill is Jimmy (AKA Saul)'s brother, not father, in Better Call Saul!!!

Hey Chris, nice to see you here! I'm unable to message you here, but a couple of comments on recent episodes. First, I'd argue that the science on SW entrainment using sounds is actually not half bad. Dozens of papers to date, including some using wearables like Muse. Several reviews, too. 1/2

New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Mahmoud E.A. Abdellahi, Penelope A. Lewis, et al:

Targeted memory reactivation elicits temporally compressed reactivation linked to spindles

doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...

But - although the mechanism is underdefined, I think it's a good direction for research, and I believe the evidence for re-emergence of wake-related neural patterns during sleep is compelling and useful for research. C'est tout. 5/5

Here comes the critique. There's little evidence the brain uses said information (if information is encoded by the brain, what's the decoder?), and it may be a byproduct. In TMR studies, it's hard (but not impossible) to decouple acoustic responses from memory-related information. 4/5

As to reactivation, I define it as any wake-related info embedded in neural (or hemodynamic) activity that re-emerges offline. Under that definition, I certainly think there's evidence for reactivation during sleep. Most evidence is from cortex, so not directly linked to hippocampal replay. 3/5

With regard to hippocampal replay at the neuronal level, I am sceptical as to whether it even occurs in humans, whether it is a useful framework for studying episodic memories, and whether it is causally related to consolidation (ensemble activity is, evidence for structured replay is lacking). 2/5

A consensus statement: defining terms for reactivation analysis During a two-day Royal Society meeting entitled ‘Memory reactivation: replaying events past, present and future’ held at Chicheley Hall in May, 2019, we discussed and defined a set of terms for investigating and reporting in memory reactivations to ...

Thanks for elaborating! From your critique, it seems you're assuming that reactivation = replay. I see these two as different concepts (my terminology roughly aligns with the one in this paper: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...). I have critique for both through :) 1/5

Can you elaborate on what your main concerns are? I have my own, but would love to hear yours.

Come to the International Sleep Replay Workshop in Vancouver on March 6th — registration and poster submission closes Feb 15 isrw.bio.uci.edu
The workshop will include symposia, short talks, posters, discussion groups, and many opportunities to interact - Memory - Sleep - Dreaming - and more

"Post-Learning Offline Pauses Support Consolidation Beyond the Mind-Wandering State"
www.preprints.org/manuscript/2...

We are hiring a research specialist, to start this summer! This position would be a great fit for individuals looking to get more experience in computational and cognitive neuroscience research before applying to graduate school. #neurojobs Apply here: research-princeton.icims.com/jobs/21503/r...

#CNS2026 Satellite - International Sleep Replay Workshop

Friday, March 6, 2026, 8:00 am - 6:00 pm, Salon F

The workshop is open to all: experience with sleep research is not required. Registration for this satellite event is separate to CNS 2026. Register here: isrw.bio.uci.edu Deadline, Feb 15th

Open Letter to CHOC/Radys — Pride At The Pier Click here to sign on to this Open Letter. Dear Rady’s and CHOC Leadership: Patrick Frias, M.D and Kimberly Chavalas Cripe  OCGAPNET, Pride at the Pier, and Trans Family Suppor...

We are demanding that CHOC leadership reverse this decision, stand with their medical staff, & defend the life-saving care California’s kids rely on.
Sign this open letter, letting CHOC know we will support them as long as they choose to stand up & refuse to comply in advance.
Stand with us.

2/2

Unfortunately there won't be one for this one. About half of the ISRWs are virtual and the other half in-person. If you join the mailing list you'll hear about the next virtual one when it's organized.