Research

Overview

The NUS Sleep and Cognition Lab is a multidisciplinary research group dedicated to understanding how sleep and sleep loss affect cognitive performance, brain function, and health, and to identifying ways to optimise sleep for improved wellbeing and productivity.

Our work integrates neuroscience, psychology, population health, engineering, and data science, combining laboratory experiments with large-scale real-world studies using wearable technology.

 

SCL's major research themes

1. Large-scale and real-world sleep measurement

Our group has pioneered population-scale sleep and cognition research:

• Longitudinal cohort studies of students and adults tracking sleep patterns and cognitive performance.
• Use of smartphones, ecological momentary assessment, and consumer wearables to capture sleep in naturalistic settings.
• Development of personalised sleep recommendations based on behavioural and wearable data.

This area of our work addresses the gap between laboratory findings and real-world sleep behaviour.

2. Optimising sleep for health and performance

A translational goal is to identify modifiable factors that improve sleep and cognition:

• Studying how schedules, light exposure, and lifestyle shape sleep opportunity and quality.
• Investigating links between sleep, physical activity, feeding patterns, and wellbeing.
• Designing interventions to improve sleep habits in students, junior doctors, workers, and ageing populations.

3. Developmental and lifespan perspectives

Our research spans childhood through ageing, and includes:

• Mid-sized adolescent cohort studies (e.g., Need for Sleep) examining effects of chronic sleep restriction on cognition, mood, and academic functioning.
• Studies of children and adolescents linking sleep to brain maturation and long-term cognitive outcomes.
• Work on sleep and cognitive ageing, including dementia risk and healthy longevity.

The overarching aim is to understand how sleep shapes neurodevelopment and cognitive ageing across life.

4. Neurocognitive consequences of sleep loss

This work contributed to identifying how insufficient or disrupted sleep alters cognition and brain function. It was our signature work but we are no longer active in this area.

Key findings and approaches include:

• Demonstrating that sleep restriction impairs attention, working memory, mood, and decision-making.
• Using functional neuroimaging to map how sleep deprivation alters brain activation and connectivity, particularly in attention and memory networks.
• Characterising inter-individual vulnerability and resilience to sleep loss.

This work established links between sleep restriction and reduced cognitive capacity, altered reward processing, and diminished executive function.

5. Sleep and memory

SCL has also investigated how sleep supports learning and memory:

• Examining how naps and nocturnal sleep enhance encoding and consolidation of memories.
• Studying the role of slow-wave sleep and sleep spindles in memory formation.
• Testing interventions such as acoustic stimulation or sleep manipulation to improve memory outcomes.

 

Methods and infrastructure

Research combines multiple complementary methods:

• Longitudinal cohort designs
• Wearables and mobile sensing
• Behavioural and cognitive testing
• EEG and polysomnography
• Machine learning and data science approaches
• Functional MRI (no longer active)

Facilities include dedicated sleep laboratories and the capability for large-scale multi-night recordings and wearable-based monitoring.

 

Our contributions

The NUS Sleep and Cognition Lab has helped establish:

• Sleep as a core determinant of cognitive performance and mental health
• Neurobiological mechanisms linking sleep to attention, memory, and decision-making
• The importance of chronic partial sleep restriction in real-world populations
• New approaches for large-scale, personalised sleep measurement and intervention

Our work spans fundamental neuroscience to population-level translational research, with the goal of improving cognitive health and wellbeing by optimising sleep across the lifespan.