Laure Peter-Derex is a French neurologist specialized in sleep medicine, epilepsy and neurophysiology. She did her medical training, residency and subspecialisation in Lyon University Hospital where she was appointed deputy Head of the Center for Sleep Medicine and Respiratory Diseases in 2017. She joined Dr. Birgit Frauscher’s lab at the MNI, McGill University, in 2019 as a postdoctoral research fellow.
Her clinical interest is in neurological sleep disorders (parasomnia, hypersomnia) and sleep disorders associated with neurological diseases (stroke, epilepsy…). Her research activity is focused on the exploration of sleep and epilepsy using intra-cerebral EEG. During her PhD (Lyon 1 University, France, 2011-2015), she studied several local aspects of sleep (spindles, arousals) recorded in the cortex and limbic structures in epileptic patients.
As part of Dr. Frauscher’s lab, her work aims at studying sleep disruption induced by nocturnal epileptic activity. More specifically, she is investigating how epileptic activity during sleep disturbs sleep continuity and sleep oscillations involved in cognitive functions, as well as the clinical impact of such disturbances on memory consolidation and dream content.
Laure was awarded several Grants and Scholarships for her research contributions over the past years (Steriade-Savoy post-doctoral scholarship, Hospital Clinical Research Program Grant (PHRC), French Society for Sleep Research and Medicine PhD scholarship). She is the author of 23 peer-reviewed papers.
Selection of 5 most relevant peer-reviewed publications:
- Flamand M, Boudet S, Lopes R, Vignal JP, Reyns N, Charley-Monaca C, Peter-Derex L, Szurhaj W. Confusional arousals during non-rapid eye movement sleep: evidence from intracerebral recordings. Sleep. 2018 Oct 1;41(10).
- Peter-Derex L, Catenoix H, Bastuji H, Chouchou F. Parasomnia versus epilepsy: An affair of the heart? Neurophysiol Clin. 2018 Oct;48(5):277-286.
- Peter-Derex L, Magnin M, Bastuji H. Heterogeneity of arousals in human sleep: A stereo-electroencephalographic study. Neuroimage. 2015 Dec;123:229-44.
- Peter-Derex L, Comte JC, Mauguière F, Salin PA. Density and frequency caudo-rostral gradients of sleep spindles recorded in the human cortex. Sleep.2012 Jan 1;35(1):69-79.
- Peter-Derex L, Perrin F, Petitjean T, Garcia-Larrea L, Bastuji H. Discriminating neurological from psychiatric hypersomnia using the forced awakening test. Neurophysiol Clin. 2013 Jun;43(3):171-9.