John Axelsson

In the rapid development of the modern 24-hour society we increase our demands for continuous services of information, health care, safety, transportation and industry production. Shift workers, parents with young children that also work fulltime, gaming adolescents and evening personalities are examples of individuals where a good 8-hour night sleep is often only a dream.

Our research

John Axelssons groups research aim to increase the knowledge and awareness of how sleep in the modern life affects our biology, cognition and health. A main focus is to investigate how disturbed sleep affects us both acutely and chronically with respect to immune function, metabolism, subjective health and the risk for developing metabolic disorders. Another research area includes how disturbed sleep affects cognitive processes and how we interact with our peers. One of the groups PhD-students, Bianka, is heading projects of how the immune system affects brain activity, subjective health and pain regulation.

John Axelssons groups research is strongly interdisciplinary which is also reflected by our methodology, with methods ranging from the photographing of sleep deprived individuals to injections with (dead) bacteria to investigate brain activity with brain imaging techniques when someone is acutely sick. John Axelssons group aims to answer questions such as: How does the brain work when we get sick? Can more sleep speed up recovery when we are sick? Does beauty sleep exist? The group think it is important to translate fundamental insights into applications to improve sleep, daytime functioning and health. The group has a portfolio of projects well suited for students within the medical and behavioural sciences.

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