Special Issue "Sleep and Brain Development"

Guest Editor
Dr. Marcos G. Frank
Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6060, USA
Website: http://www.med.upenn.edu/apps/faculty/index.php/g20001668/p36825
E-Mail: mgf@mail.med.upenn.edu
Phone: +215 746 0388
Fax: +215 573 9050
Interests: neural development; sleep; synaptic plasticity; glia

The function of sleep is an enduring biological mystery. This mystery only deepens when we look back in ontogenetic time. Across a wide a variety of animal species, sleep amounts are maximal during early development. This abundance of sleep coincides with periods of heightened brain growth and plasticity. This suggests that one function of sleep may be to promote normal brain maturation. This intuitive idea, however, has been minimally explored. A more complete understanding of sleep ontogenesis and the impact of normal and abnormal sleep on the developing brain is needed.

The current special issue will feature articles that address how sleep and sleep regulation change during development, and the interactions between sleep, brain maturation and plasticity, and behavior.

Dr. Marcos G. Frank
Guest Editor

Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Brain Sciences is an international peer-reviewed Open Access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 300 CHF (Swiss Francs). English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.

• ontogenesis
• synaptic plasticity
• sleep
• neural development
• infants
• children
• adolescence
• fetal