Dan Denis
Lecturer in Psychology
Profile
Biography
- Lecturer in Psychology, University of York, 2024 -
- Research Fellow, University of York, 2022 - 2024
- Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Notre Dame, 2019 - 2021
- Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Harvard Medical School, 2017 - 2019
- Research Associate, King’s College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, 2016 - 2017
- PhD Psychology, University of Sheffield, 2013 - 2017
Career
I completed my undergraduate degree in Psychology and a subsequent Masters of Research in Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London. I then moved to the University of Sheffield where I earned my PhD in Psychology, before heading to the USA to complete two postdoctoral positions at Harvard Medical School and the University of Notre Dame. I joined the University of York in 2022 as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow, before moving into a Lecturer position in 2024.
Research
Overview
Why are some experiences remembered whilst others are forgotten? My primary research interest is understanding how we identify and prioritise key information in our environment so that we can remember important events. I use cognitive neuroscience techniques to understand how adaptive memories are formed in the brain, and how they are strengthened and transformed over time to provide useful representations that help guide our interactions with the world. I am particularly interested in the role of sleep in memory consolidation processes, and how maladaptive memory biases develop in mental ill-health.
I also hold an interest in so-called anomalous sleep experiences, such as sleep paralysis. Here I am interested in understanding more about what causes these experiences, and ways that episodes can be made less frightening and even transformed into something positive.
Projects
Adaptive memory consolidation: The aim of this project is to understand how we prioritise certain information to be retained in memory, guided by certain salience cues present in the environment. There is a particular focus on the role of emotion and reward, and how the brain tags these features to prioritise their consolidation over less relevant information.
Sleep neurophysiology and mental health: This project is focused on sleep spindles, a specific neural oscillation that occurs during non-rapid eye movement sleep and is believed to be mechanistically involved in memory consolidation processes. These oscillations appear to be altered in a number of mental health conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia. This project is interested in how these spindle deficits contribute to memory impairments and other symptomatology in these groups.
Research group(s)
- EPOC lab
- SLAM lab
Grants
- 2022 – 2024 European Commission: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Experienced Researcher Individual Fellowship
Collaborators
- Scott Cairney (University of York)
- Tony Cunningham (Harvard Medical School)
- Edward F. Pace-Schott (Harvard Medical School)
- Alice M. Gregory (Goldsmiths, University of London)
- Giulia Poerio (University of Sussex)
Available PhD research projects
I would love to hear from prospective PhD students or independent research fellows broadly interested in any of the above topics – please email me!
Teaching
Undergraduate
- Year 2 Brain and Behaviour: Clinical Neuroscience
- Year 3 Advanced Module: Understanding mental health and its disorders: A transdiagnostic approach
- Research project supervision
Publications
Selected publications
- Denis, D., and Payne, J.D. (2024). Targeted memory reactivation during non-rapid eye movement sleep enhances neutral, but not negative, components of memory. eNeuro. 11 (5). ENEURO.0285-23.2024.
- Denis, D., Bottary, R., Cunningham T.J., Drummond S.P.A., and Straus, L.D. (2023). Beta spectral power during sleep is associated with impaired recall of extinguished fear. Sleep. 46 (10). zsad209.
- Denis, D., Sanders K.E.G., Kensinger, E.A., and Payne, J.D. (2022). Sleep preferentially enhances negative aspects of human memory: Well-powered evidence from two large online experiences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 119 (44). e2022657119.
- Denis, D., Mylonas, D., Poskanzer, C., Bursal, V., Payne, J.D., Stickgold, R. (2021). Sleep spindles preferentially consolidate weakly encoded memories. The Journal of Neuroscience. 41 (18). 4088-4099.
Full publications list
External activities
Memberships
- Sleep Research Society
- Society for Neuroscience
Editorial duties
- Guest Editor for the special issue “The Role of Sleep in Learning and Memory”, published in Frontiers in Sleep
Invited talks and conferences
- University of Sussex School of Psychology Colloquia (2024)
- University of Sheffield Department of Psychology Seminar Series (2023)
- Stickgold Science of Sleep Series (2022)
Media coverage
