Sleep and Cognitive Development Lab

Norwegian Centre for Molecular Medicine, Oslo, Norway


Hi. Welcome to Boccara Lab.

We combine high density electrophysiology, optogenetics and computational analyses to investigate how sleep contributes to healthy cognitive development. If you are interested in joining us, please check our hiring page – we have several position open! The lab is focused on the following research lines:

Sleep & Cognitive Development

Decoding immature neural activity from multiple brain areas in freely behaving rodent pups to reveal mechanisms at play during developmental sleep.

Models of sleep deprivation

Exploiting recent advance in gene editing, molecular and viral tools to engineer rodent models of developmental sleep deprivation (Chemogenetic, Optogenetic, CRISPR)

Technological Innovations

Engineering wireless and fully implantable electrophysiological “brain machine interface” to decode and manipulate brain activity in real time in freely-behaving rodents.



Computational Tools

Developing analytical pipelines and machine learning algorithms to automatically detect and decode multiunit activity codes and oscillatory events across brain regions.

Decoding Brain Representations

Revealing sleep and wake neural computations that support learning, updating and consolidation of memory traces, as well as the neural code underlying spatial cognition.

Metabolism and Sleep

Monitoring the communications between the brain and the adipose tissue during adolescent sleep to better understand how bad sleep habits may lead to the emergence of metabolic disorders



Autophagy and Sleep

Developing tools and strategies to study autophagy during sleep in an invertebrate (Drosophila) and a rodent (rat) model of sleep deprivation.

Research Funding

The lab is generously supported by research grants and fellowships from the following sources