30 May 2025
The Sleep/Wake Research Centre (School of Health Sciences, College of Health, Massey University) is delighted to host two international scholars in May 2025. As part of their visit, they will provide a series of seminars.
Professor Gianluca Ficca is a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, researcher, and Full Professor of General Psychology at the Department of Psychology, University of Campania "L. Vanvitelli." He has a Ph.D. in Sleep Psychophysiology and is a European Specialist in Anxiety Disorders. He is a former member of the European Sleep Research Society (ESRS) Scientific Committee (2014-2018) and the author of about 100 scientific peer-reviewed international and national articles. In addition to his scientific, teaching and clinical activities he has combined those of theater therapist, coordinator of theatre projects in rehabilitation settings and theatre translator of American and English plays.
Dr. Saana Myllyntausta is a university lecturer in psychology at the University of Turku, Finland, and also holds a Title of Docent (Associate Professor) at the University of Tampere, Finland. In her research, she has examined changes in sleep during the transition to retirement, factors associated with sleep of older employees, as well as predictors of the duration of working life. Dr. Myllyntausta is visiting Sleep/Wake Research Centre, Massey University, in May-July 2025 and is collaborating with the Health and Ageing Research Team in Palmerston North. This is her second research visit to Wellington; the first time she visited during her PhD project in 2018. She is passionate about bouldering, Finnish heavy metal music, and the All Blacks.
Professor Gianluca Ficca
Postgraduate students welcome
Room 3C10, Massey University, Wellington, and online
Zoom: https://massey.zoom.us/j/87413798937
12:00pm, 26 May 2025
In sleep medicine, subjective sleep quality is crucial, since it is a major aspect prompting patients to seek counselling. Therefore, understanding its main determinants is of utmost importance. This talk will show some relevant similarities and discrepancies with respect to objective quality, i.e. what is considered a good night's sleep by sleep experts. Methodological and theoretical issues on this topic will be highlighted in detail.
Professor Gianluca Ficca
Room 3C10, Massey University, Wellington, and online
Zoom: https://massey.zoom.us/j/83746347581
12:00pm, 29 May 2025
For many years, wake duration has been considered the main factor driving sleep homeostasis. However, it is quite intuitive that wake periods of equal duration can vary much from one another in terms of quality and “intensity”, expressing the degree of cognitive and physical activity. This presentation will focus on the massive body of evidence supporting this notion; in particular, Prof. Ficca will pinpoint data from the research on sleep-memory relationships, clearly showing the meaningful sleep restructuring determined by pre-sleep learning processes.
Professor Gianluca Ficca and Associate Professor Saana Myllyntausta
Room 3C10, Massey University, Wellington, and online
Zoom: https://massey.zoom.us/j/89005818558
12:30pm, 30 May 2025
Professor Ficca will present on: Sleep quality impairment in aging as an expression of “functional uncertainty”: a cognitive and psychophysiological approach.
Overview: As many as 50% of older individuals complain about sleep problems, including disturbed or ‘‘light’’ sleep, frequent night awakenings, early morning awakenings and undesired daytime sleepiness. This presentation will first display experimental and clinical evidence proving that sleep quality impairments in elderly people are often independent of any medical/psychiatric illnesses or primary sleep disorders; instead, they seem largely related to the aging process per se and are caused by the interplay of several psychophysiological changes, among which a peculiar difficulty of CNS in building up the sleep architecture, that we have defined “functional uncertainty”. The talk will provide details on these changes and focus on possible strategies, in clinical practice and in everyday life, to overcome their negative impact on sleep quality, health and psychological well-being.
Associate Professor Myllyntausta will present on: Sleep, work, retire – how older employees sleep before and after retirement in Finland
In her presentation, Dr. Myllyntausta will go through her findings on how psychosocial work-related factors (e.g. job strain, working hours) are associated with the sleep of older employees. She will also present her observations on how sleep changes when people retire from work. Her findings are based on both survey and accelerometer data from longitudinal cohort studies in Finland, a Nordic welfare state. Finally, Dr. Myllyntausta will present her recent findings on sleep as a predictor of working life expectancy at midlife.
Image credit: Photo by Acharaporn Kamornboonyarush: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-person-holding-alarm-clock-1028741/