Biomarkers & Risk Prevention

Insufficient sleep has a significant negative impact on human physical and mental health and ability to function. However, people respond in vastly different ways to sleep loss and sleep disorders. We want to learn why.

Sleep neuroscience refers to the effect of sleep on the brain and nervous system in the body. Rapid scientific and technical advances have enabled reliable and affordable measurement of sleep neurophysiology. Individual variability in performance and impacts of sleep loss will reflect biological variability in sleep and circadian control systems along with a range of other lifestyle and genetic factors. A range of physiological measures based in neuroscience are needed to understand many of these mechanisms, including why some people cope with sleep loss and sleep disorders that predict poor health outcomes better than others.

OUR RESEARCH

Our research aims to discover and validate new neural, behavioural and biological biomarkers to help predict how an individual will respond to sleep loss or sleep disorders. We can then use these biomarkers to develop clinically deployable tools to identify people at high risk of poor cognitive and mental health outcomes and risk of alertness failure and sleep-related performance impairment on the road and at work.

These tools could provide early screening of people at higher risk of poor cognitive and mental health outcomes and prevent potentially fatal work or motor vehicle accidents caused by sleep loss or disorder.

One of the new methods being used includes tri-concentric ring electrodes (TCRE) for recording brain electrical activity from more localised areas of the brain and with much less muscle artefact than traditional electrode systems.

We are also developing new signal processing methods are also being applied to develop novel biomarkers that are more sensitive to sleep disruption compared to traditional sleep scoring methods.

Research projects

NHMRC funded projects investigating new, simple and cost-effective clinical tools that can be used routinely in all patients to assist clinicians and policy makers to assess alertness failure and accident risk in OSA.
Australian Government Research Network for Undersea Decision Superiority into optimal lighting on participant’s body clocks, sleep, and work performance.
Australian Government Research Network for Undersea Decision Superiority into optimal lighting on participant’s body clocks, sleep, and work performance.
Commonwealth funded project to evaluate and validate a new vestibular-ocular measurement device using virtual reality goggles to identify driver fatigue for use in road-side testing applications.
CRC for Alertness, Safety and Productivity funded project to pilot test in-mattress sensors to quantify sleep.
CRC for Alertness, Safety and Productivity funded project development of a CRC Sleep Health Decision support system for practitioners.
Flinders Foundation Seed Grant investigating the effectiveness of CPAP treatment to reduce fall risk in older people with obstructive sleep apnea.
And a NHMRC targeted funding recent large study investigated wind farm compared to road traffic noise effects on sleep that is underpinning other noise related projects.

Resources

Youtube video: Associate Professor Andrew Vakulin speaks about the research and possible research opportunities for collaborations and PhD candidates.

Sleeptite Wesbite

GROUP MEMBERS

Associate Professor Andrew Vakulin
Research theme Co-lead

Research focuses on development and validation of biomarkers to identify people’s vulnerability to sleep loss and sleep disorders. The goal of this research is to deploy biomarker screening tools to help clinicians identify people at higher risk of alertness failure and performance impairment for fitness to drive and operational environments to ultimately reduce sleepiness related accidents. This research increasingly utilises novel wearable and nearable technology to help profile people’s sleep in the home environment and how they respond to insufficient sleep or sleep disorders from a cognitive function and operational performance perspective.

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Professor Danny Eckert, Director FHMRI Sleep Health, Matthew Flinders Professor

Professor Peter Catcheside

Dr Nicole Lovato

Dr Bastien Lechat,
Research Fellow

Mandy O’Grady,
Research Assistant

Kelsey Bickley,
Research Assistant

Jesse Parker,
PhD Candidate

Claire Dunbar,
PhD Candidate

WORK WITH US

We have long-term international and Australian sleep health partnerships across universities, South Australian Local Health Network and with industry groups. Please contact us to discuss opportunities.

Get involved