Harvard Catalyst Profiles

University of Trier, Tier, Germany	M.A.	05/1995	Biological Psychology
Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany	Ph.D.	12/2001	Sleep, Inflammation, Psychiatry
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA	Postdoc	11/2004	Sleep, Inflammation, Pain

RESEARCH INTERESTS
My research goals are directed at discovering the mechanisms involved in the relationship between sleep deficiency and increased disease risk, in particular chronic pain, with a focus on central pain processing and pro-inflammatory and inflammatory resolution pathways as promising mechanistic candidates. Over the years, I have developed an interdisciplinary research program linking sleep physiology, inflammatory and endocrine networks, emotional well-being, with pain and pain processing. My group has developed and implemented complex and lengthy experimental models of sleep deficiency that mimic sleep patterns that are highly common in society, such as the repeated exposure to restricting sleep on weekdays and catching-up on sleep over the weekend, or patterns of recurrent sleep disturbances. We are further investigating the sleep-pain relationships using real-life models, such as insomnia disorder. Currently, we are studying the role of sleep disturbances in Long COVID, for which various types of pain and sleep disturbances are two of the most common symptoms. Based on these laboratory and non-laboratory models, findings repeatedly suggested sex differences in the inflammatory and pain processing responses to sleep disturbances, which we hope will help to improve our understanding of the over-representation of females in the many chronic pain conditions associated with sleep disturbances.

SOCIETY MEMBERSHIP
1999 – present German Sleep Society (DGSM)
2003 – present Sleep Research Society (SRS)
2012 – 2018 American Pain Society (APS)
2015 – present Psychoneuroimmunology Research Society (PNIRS)
2019 – present International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP)

• Sleep
• Sleep Disturbances
• Insomnia Disorder
• Pain
• Pain Modulation
• Stress
• Inflammation
• Inflammatory Resolution