Tononi was born in
Trento, Italy, and obtained an
M.D. in psychiatry and a Ph.D. in
neurobiology at the
Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in
Pisa, Italy. He is an authority on sleep, and in particular the genetics and
etiology of sleep. Tononi and collaborators have pioneered several complementary approaches to study sleep: •
genomics •
proteomics • fruit fly models • rodent models employing multiunit / local field potential recordings in behaving animals • in vivo voltammetry and microscopy • high-density
EEG recordings and
transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in humans • large-scale computer models of sleep and wakefulness This research has led to a comprehensive hypothesis on the function of sleep (proposed with sleep researcher Chiara Cirelli), the synaptic homeostasis hypothesis. According to the hypothesis, wakefulness leads to a net increase in
synaptic strength, and sleep is necessary to reestablish synaptic
homeostasis. The hypothesis has implications for understanding the effects of
sleep deprivation and for developing novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to sleep disorders and neuropsychiatric disorders. Tononi is a leader in the field of
consciousness studies, and has co-authored a book on the subject with Nobel prize winner
Gerald Edelman. Tononi also developed the
integrated information theory (IIT): a theory of what consciousness is, how it can be measured, how it is correlated with brain states, and why it fades when we fall into dreamless sleep and returns when we dream. The theory is being tested with neuroimaging, Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and computer models. His work has been described as "the only really promising fundamental theory of consciousness" by collaborator
Christof Koch. ==Works==