Currently Active Projects

University of Louisville Space Flight Exploration Project: Impact of Sleep, Microgravity and Stress on Cognition and the Brain.
Co-Investigator on grant submitted by D. Molfese, V. Molfese and R. Dykman to NASA. June, 2006 to May, 2008. This project is investigating the impacts of sleep and simulated microgravity (using the head-down tilt method) on decision-making and problem solving in adults. The goal is to determine how the performance of astronauts during space missions might be impacted by sleep and fluid volume changes in the brain.

Space Flight And Exploration: The Impact Of The Microgravity Environment On Perception, Cognition, Sleep, and Brain Physiology.
Co-Investigator on grant to D.L. Molfese, D. Gozal, & V. Molfese from NASA. September, 2005 to August, 2006. This project establishes methodologies and assessments for studying the impacts of sleep and simulated microgravity on adult decision making and problem solving. Different approaches to study brain physiology – including event-related potentials and near-infra red – are being used to determine how differences in brain processing can be detected.

Sleep and Sleep Disorders in Children.
Investigator on grant awarded to D. Molfese by the National Institutes of Health, January, 2004 to December 2007. This project is studying how sleep duration and sleep disorders impact the development of cognitive skills in children. Children are engaged in studies involving mild sleep restriction (one less hour of sleep per night for a week) and sleep extension (one hour more sleep per night for a week) to determine how cognitive skills are impacted compared to performance when the children get their typical amounts of night time sleep.

Scaling Up the Implementation of a Pre-Kindergarten Mathematics Curriculum in Public Preschool Programs.
Investigator on subcontract to V. Molfese, D. Molfese and E. Todd Brown from grant awarded to P. Starkey and A. Klein (University of California-Berkeley) by the U.S. Department of Education, September, 2006 to August, 2010. The purpose of this project is to study the effects of implementing a mathematics intervention in public preschool programs on the development of young children’s mathematics concepts, and using the perspectives of teachers, parents, and school administers to evaluate the impacts and the intervention.