Dr. Jacqueline van der Meij
Main Focus
Since all animals spend a significant amount of time in a state of
reduced consciousness (i.e. sleep), it is thought that sleep has an
essential function. Although several hypotheses for the function of
sleep have been proposed (e.g. memory consolidation), its exact purpose
remains actively debated. During my PhD, I examined the function of
sleep by using innovative electrophysiological techniques (e.g. high
density array) to make acute and chronic, wireless recordings of brain
activity, in both anesthetized and naturally sleeping birds. For my
postdoc I will be shifting to rodents, where I will be using
electrophysiological methods to study the role of sleep in memory
consolidation, by looking into the hippocampal-PFC network while the
rodents engage a new spatial navigation/memory task called the Hex Maze.
Curriculum Vitae
Since 2019 Postdoctoral researcher, Genzel Lab, Donders Centre for Neuroscience - Neuroinformatics, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
2013 - 2019 PhD student, Avian Sleep Group, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology (International Max Planck Research School for Organismal Biology), Seewiesen, Germany (PhD degree from Utrecht University, The Netherlands)
2012 - 2013 MSc in Teaching Biology, Graduate School of Teaching, Leiden University, The Netherlands
2010 - 2012 MSc in Biology, Evolution, Biodiversity and Conservation, Leiden University, The Netherlands
2007 - 2010 BSc in Biology: Leiden University, The Netherlands