Zoe Atherton, Ph.D.

Mentor: Carmen Varela, Ph.D.

Affiliation: Charles E. Schmidt College of Science and FAU Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute

Zoe Atherton, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow in the FAU Stile-Nicholson Brain Institute,, studies how sleep affects memory. While we sleep, we convert our experiences into long-term memories by storing them across the various parts of the brain and thus, stabilizing them, she said. A deep brain region called the thalamus mediates communication between multiple brain regions to make this happen. It’s this process that Atherton investigates.

Feature: Snoozing for Brain Health