Project: Sleep restriction

Training in Zurich

Training provided by Prof. Tobler at the University of Zurich.

This group is specialized in basic sleep research and has an international recognition to be at the forefront of signal analysis of the sleep EEG (spectral analysis, EEG mapping) and mathematical modeling. A particular strength of the Zurich team is its interaction and combination of research at the level of both animals and humans. Another outstanding characteristic of the group is the multidisciplinary background of the senior members.

The laboratory has a large experience in training. It has trained more than 43 Post-doctoral fellows, Ph.D. students, and MD’s; 16 females, 27 males. Presently in training are 7 females and 2 males.

The Zurich team is embedded in the project "Life Science Zurich" (http://www.lifescience-zurich.ch/index-en.asp), a joint initiative of the University of Zurich and the ETH Zurich with the goal to maintain a leading position in many areas of the life sciences and to strengthen the communication of Life Sciences activities. The group is also associated with the Center of Medical Research (ttp://www.med.uzh.ch/ZKF.html) a Competence Center of the Facultyof Medicine of the University of Zurich for basic-, disease- and patient-oriented clinical research. The team is multinational and therefore, the official language in the laboratory, as well as in courses and seminars is English.http://www.sprachenzentrum.unizh.ch/index.php 

Early stage researchers will receive their training within the framework of the Center for Neuroscience Zurich http://www.neuroscience.uzh.ch/  which offers a well-established Ph.D. program. In addition, a Ph.D. program is available at the Center for Integrative Human Physiology. Both training programs require regular exams in the course of the training and are completed with a specific certificate. A further possibility is offered by the Faculty of Mathematical and applied Sciences in the form of courses in Human and Medical Biology. The education is structured according to individual skills and needs of the trainees. They receive tight tutoring on a daily basis and have to provide regular progress reports in the weekly staff meeting and in internal seminars. The expertise of the research team is regularly complemented by collaboration with expert teams, especially in Europe, that can provide the students with additional research know-how and tools.

The Institute and especially this particular team provides practical courses in neurobiology, pharmacology, chronobiology and sleep. Students learn to plan and design experiments in humans and animals, they learn to perform polysomnography and analyze a broad diversity of biological signals, including motor activity, temperature, EKG, EEG. Analyses are focused on the relationship between behavior variables and the sleep and waking EEG. The students experience the practical aspects of research by taking part as subjects. Trainees engaged in animal research take mandatory courses in ethical and practical aspects of animal research.

The training course is complemented by courses where students obtain practical experience in computer programming, statistical analyses, and refined signal analysis. The students have to acquire programming skills to achieve independent mastering of signal and data analysis.
The laboratory further provides training in didactics, as well as in critical reading of scientific literature. Individuals must present selected recent papers pertaining to sleep and chronobiology, and learn to evaluate them. Interaction with other course participants and colleagues is emphasized.

In a separate seminar series students learn to present their own projects and results.
One of the recurrent seminars invites international experts in the field of sleep and chronobiology who present their recent data and spend a day or two in the laboratory, interacting with the graduate students and post-doctoral fellows.

The students are encouraged to take part in all local and national meetings of neuroscience (e.g. Swiss Society of Neuroscience; Swiss Society of Sleep Research, Sleep Medicine and Chronobiology) and to participate at international meetings (FENS, ESRS, APSS). Condition for participation at international meetings is the presentation of own data (posters or oral communication).

Senior staff is integrated in lectures in Pharmacology and Toxicology, Comparative Physiology of Sleep, Circadian rhythms and Statistics.

Furthermore, several members have been recurrently involved in the past 4 years in activities surrounding the International Week of the Brain, covering the topics of sleep and chronobiology. These weeks are dedicated to teaching of the public. All students of the laboratory have actively participated at these events.

For our projects (animal and human) we can accommodate 1 early stage and 2 experienced researchers. The work involved with our sleep experiments (i.e. subject recruitment, screening, night-time recordings and data analysis in human studies; all aspects in animal studies) is performed almost exclusively by doctoral students and Post-doctoral fellows who are the mainstay in the laboratory. Experienced researchers will be involved in teaching and supervision of early stage researchers and they will be tutored individually by the senior members of the group.