Kathmandu - From September 19 to October 13, a scientific expedition under the international PYRAMID26 project will head to the Ev-K2-CNR Pyramid Laboratory-Observatory, located at the foot of Mount Everest. The Italian Association of Sleep Medicine (AIMS) is sponsoring and supporting an extensive research program to monitor, night after night, how the human brain and sleep adapt to high-altitude hypoxia.
Kicking off on September 19, PYRAMID26 – Exploration and Physiology will deploy a multidisciplinary team of 21 Italian researchers deep into the Everest region, reaching the Pyramid Laboratory-Observatory at 5,050 meters above sea level in Nepal's Khumbu Valley. Led by Professor Vittore Verratti of the "Gabriele d'Annunzio" University of Chieti-Pescara, the mission brings together numerous Italian universities to study the human body under extreme environmental stress.
At the core of the scientific agenda is barometric hypoxia, the reduced oxygen availability caused by falling atmospheric pressure at high altitudes. A major component of the mission focuses specifically on sleep. Developed by the Sleep Psychophysiology and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of L'Aquila, led by Professor Michele Ferrara, the research program is backed by AIMS. Field operations are directed by Dr. Federico Salfi of the University of L'Aquila, with scientific support from Dr. Antonella Iadarola of the University of Genova.
The team will employ a longitudinal, multimodal approach, integrating wearable EEG headband devices to record brain activity directly during strategic nights of the ascent. This will be paired with monitoring of respiratory function and blood oxygen levels managed on-site by Dr. Domenico Caratozzolo of the University of Catania, alongside actigraphy wristbands to track continuous sleep-wake rhythms and daily physical activity. By following the same subjects from baseline measurements in Kathmandu up to the 5,050-meter mark and back, researchers aim to build a comprehensive dataset.
"Completing this protocol will allow us to build an extraordinarily rich longitudinal dataset, integrating brain activity, respiration, and subjective experience, which are rarely captured together in high-altitude sleep research," explains Federico Salfi. "This mission offers a valuable contribution to understanding hypoxia's effects on sleep physiology while providing a methodological model applicable to other extreme environments," adds AIMS President Lino Nobili.