Maxwell Shafer*

Email: maxwell.shafer@utoronto.ca
Department of Cell & Systems Biology
Collaborative Program in Neuroscience (CPIN) member

Research interests: Many of the biological mechanisms that regulate the circadian phase, duration, and structure of sleep are conserved across vertebrates. Given this extensive conservation, it is remarkable that sleep patterns display widespread variation both across and within species. Animals can have different chronotypes (‘early-birds’ and ‘night-owls’) or spend variable amounts of time asleep (from as little as 2hrs to 18hrs a day). Species can shift the phase of their circadian activity (nocturnal or diurnal), restrict activity to specific periods of the day (dawn or dusk), or lose rhythmicity entirely. However, we do not know the genes responsible for shifts in circadian activity or sleep structure, or comprehend the evolutionary causes or consequences for such changes. In our group we use a combination of bioinformatic and computational genomic comparisons across species, ancestral reconstructions of sleep across hundreds of millions of years of evolution, and behavioural, neurobiological, and molecular comparisons between focal species (diurnal and nocturnal species of fish).

Assistant Professor
Department of Cell & Systems Biology - SGS Appointment
University of Toronto

Links:
U of T Profile: Cell & Systems Biology
Shafer Lab

Pubmed search of Maxwell Shafer's publications.