Our Projects

Sleep deficiency, both in terms of quantity and quality, is highly relevant to public health, as it is associated with mortality, morbidity, accident risk, self-perceived health, quality of life, occupational health, and overall well-being. It is estimated that around one third of adults in the United States do not obtain sufficient sleep, and that in Latin America a large proportion of the population suffers from chronic sleep deprivation.

One of the current challenges in sleep science is the development of practical, scalable, and low-cost tools for monitoring sleep habits at both the individual and population levels. A recent alternative is the use of data from mobile applications and social networks for the study of sleep.

These sources of information allow researchers to easily access large volumes of data collected under naturalistic conditions, and recent studies indicate that, due to their massive scale, data obtained through these channels enable the study of sleep-related phenomena with acceptable reliability.

The present project aims to evaluate and validate the usefulness of big data–based models for monitoring sleep patterns in populations in Argentina, using various available large-scale data sources.

The sleep–wake cycle represents the most prominent and remarkable daily variation in human physiology and behavior. Humans are typically diurnal and have limited visual capacity under low-light conditions; consequently, we consolidate most of our sleep into a single nocturnal episode.

An exception to the strict diurnal nature of humans under natural conditions occurs on nights illuminated by the moon. At night, moonlight is sufficiently bright for the human eye, making it plausible that, in the absence of other light sources, the moon could influence sleep–wake dynamics. However, this potential modulation of behavior has long been controversial, even when some groups reported effects on sleep under controlled laboratory conditions.

Nevertheless, in a study published in 2021, we showed that the timing of nocturnal sleep changes across the lunar cycle in Toba/Qom communities in the province of Formosa, and that, surprisingly, this modulation is replicated with similar characteristics in a highly industrialized city (Seattle, USA).

This project aims to determine the underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon.

Sleep patterns are primarily the result of the interaction between two physiological processes: on the one hand, the circadian system, which determines optimal times of day for rest and activity; and on the other, the accumulation of homeostatic sleep pressure.

The general objective of this project is to evaluate which of these two fundamental sleep mechanisms are affected across the lunar cycle, with an initial focus on the possibility that the observed changes are mediated by modulation of the circadian clock.

Decision-making is a complex process that requires the identification and evaluation of multiple alternatives in order to choose an optimal course of action. However, this process is severely affected by sleep deprivation and circadian rhythm disruption, which impact basic executive functions such as working memory and inhibitory control, as well as more complex functions related to risk and reward evaluation. Insufficient sleep not only reduces cognitive performance but also impairs metacognition (the ability to monitor one’s own cognition) and the balance between automatic and reflective thinking systems.

In high-demand professional environments, such as the judicial system and healthcare, these alterations have critical consequences for individuals’ integrity and well-being. In the judicial field, evidence suggests that sleep deprivation in judges may be associated with harsher sentencing. In healthcare settings, approximately 50% of physicians report symptoms of exhaustion or burnout, which has reached epidemic levels. Sleep deprivation and circadian rhythm disruption are among the main contributing factors to this problem.

Our objective is to analyze the association between objective sleep parameters (duration and quality) and decision-making processes in criminal court judges and healthcare professionals, evaluating how accumulated fatigue and circadian timing modulate sentencing severity, metacognition, and the effectiveness of decision-making systems in critical situations.