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Penny Lewis
Professor of Psychology, MRC CoRE Leadership Team
Career Path
2025
Leadership Team, MRC CoRE in Restorative Neural Dynamics
2018
Professor in Psychology, Cardiff University
Research Themes
Mapping & rebalancing memory
We are particularly interested in triggering the brain to practice memories during sleep. This ‘brainwashing’ can strengthen target memories, helping the brain to make new connections and think creatively. It can also be used to make upsetting memories less bothersome and may eventually be used in treating Depression and PTSD.
Understanding & Engineering sleeping brain
We examines ways in which the sleeping brain processes information, and how this can be nudged in order to improve memory, enhance creativity, and improve mental wellbeing. We are also working on ways to slow down the aging process by artificially boosting sleep oscillations.
Recent Papers
Disarming emotional memories using targeted memory reactivation during rapid eye movement sleep.
2025. Imaging Neurosci (Camb), 3.
Free Full Text at Europe PMC
Targeted memory reactivation in human REM sleep elicits detectable reactivation.
2023. eLife, 12:e84324
Free Full Text at Europe PMC