Dr Luisa de Vivo

Lab Overview

My goal is to understand why sleep is important for correct brain functioning and mental health. I am particularly interested in studying how synaptic plasticity is modulated by sleep and wake and how sleep disruption interferes with synaptic activity.

Research Questions

Sleep is present across the animal kingdom and occupies a third of our lives, yet what happens to our brain cells during sleep remains a mystery. Some of the questions I would like to answer are:

1) what are the effects of sleep, wake and sleep disruption at the cellular and circuit level?

2) what are the mechanisms that regulate sleep in health and disease?

3) what are the long-term consequences of chronic sleep disruption during development on mental health?

By gaining insight into the underlying biological mechanisms that regulate sleep and that link impaired sleep to altered brain development I aim to identify potential therapeutic targets to improve mental health.

Techniques

In my research, I apply a range of techniques to study the morphology and function of neurons and glial cells in rodents.

Serial block face electron microscopy
Immunohistochemistry and confocal microscopy
In vivo imaging
Chronic polysomnographic recordings
In vivo and ex vivo acute electrophysiology
Molecular biology

Impact

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Selected Publications

de Vivo L, Bellesi M, Marshall W, Bushong EA, Ellisman MH, Tononi G, Cirelli C. Ultrastructural Evidence for Synaptic Scaling Across the Wake/sleep Cycle. Science 2017: Vol. 355, Issue 6324, pp. 507-510.
Bellesi M, de Vivo L, Chini M, Gilli F, Tononi G, Cirelli C. Sleep loss promotes astrocytic phagocytosis and microglial activation in mouse cerebral cortex. J Neurosci 2017;37(21):5263-5273.
Bellesi M, de Vivo L, Tononi G, Cirelli C. Effects of sleep and wake on astrocytes: clues from molecular and ultrastructural studies. BMC Biol. 2015; 13:66.
de Vivo L, Nelson AB, Bellesi M, Noguti J, Tononi G, Cirelli C. Loss of Sleep Affects the Ultrastructure of Pyramidal Neurons in the Adolescent Mouse Frontal Cortex. Sleep. 2016; 39(4):861-74.
de Vivo L, Faraguna U, Nelson AB, Pfister-Genskow M, Klapperich ME, Tononi G, Cirelli C. Developmental patterns of sleep slow wave activity and synaptic density in adolescent mice. Sleep. 2014, 37(4):689-700

View complete publications list in the University of Bristol publications system.

Funding

Teaching

Citizenship

3D reconstruction of a dendritic segment and its spines from the mouse cerebral cortex.

Group

Group member 1
Group member 2
Group member 3