Julie Carrier

Julie Carrier received the B.A. degree in psychology from the University of Ottawa in 1990 and the Ph.D. degree in psychology from the Université de Montréal in 1995. She was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in research on sleep and aging with the Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, from 1995 to 1998. She started as an Assistant Professor with the Université de Montréal in 1999, where she is currently a Full Professor in psychology. In 2013, she created the Canadian Sleep and Circadian Network, where she is currently the Scientific Director. Her work identified key mechanisms underlying age-related changes in the sleep-wake cycle and their functional consequences on physical and cognitive health in normal and pathological aging. Her team demonstrated that specific sleep oscillations predict development of dementia and that sleep has the potential to become a reliable non-invasive and low-cost tool to identify older individuals at higher risk of neurodegenerative disorders. Her research also point out to innovative preventive and therapeutic targets to alleviate sleep and vigilance difficulties associated with normal and pathological aging. In recent years, her research team established a multi-modal approach to unravel brain mechanisms associated to age-related modifications in the sleep-wake cycle. Hence, she developed innovative methodologies to study sleep including simultaneous electroencephalography (EEG) and functional resonance magnetic imaging (fMRI) acquisitions, combination of EEG and magnetoencephalography (MEG), and evaluation of light sensitivity using fMRI. She combines these methodologies with other the state-of-the-art brain imaging and neurophysiological technics, such as transcranial alternating current stimulation, MRI cortical thickness, diffusion MRI, and white matter fiber tracking. She has authored over 140 peer-reviewed scientific articles and 22 book chapters/invited papers. She presented her scientific contributions 60 times in symposium and oral sessions in international meetings. She is a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Science for her exceptional research contribution in sleep and circadian research. She received the Young Investigator Award from the Sleep Research Society in 1998. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Sleep Research Society. She is actively involved in knowledge mobilization both nationally and internationally, including Global Council on Brain Health. She gave over 30 conferences for the clinicians, patients, and the public and 140 media interviews.