Faculty

Mathias Basner, MD, PhD, MSc
Assistant Professor of Sleep and Chronobiology in Psychiatry
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Division of Sleep and Chronobiology, Department of Psychiatry

Mathias Basner, M.D., M.S., M.Sc. is an Assistant Professor of Sleep and Chronobiology in Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Dr. Basner received his degree in Medicine and his Master in Research from the University of Bochum, Germany and Master of Science in Epidemiology from the University of Bielefeld, Germany. Dr. Basner trained at the Institute for Applied Physiology at the University of Bochum and worked as a Research Associate at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Aerospace Medicine, Flight Physiology Division from 1999 until 2006 before moving to the United States to pursue his research interests in the neurobehavioral consequences of sleep loss as a Research Associate. He returned to DLR in 2008 to head the Flight Physiology Division for two years. In January 2010, Dr. Basner assumed the position of Assistant Professor of Sleep and Chronobiology in Psychiatry.

Dr. Basner's primary research interests concern the effects of sleep loss on neurobehavioral and cognitive functions, population studies on sleep time and waking activities, and the effects of traffic noise on sleep and recuperation. Dr. Basner conducted several large scale laboratory and field studies on the effects of traffic noise on sleep between 1999 and 2008 as PI. For this research, Dr. Basner was awarded the German Aerospace Center award for outstanding research in 2007 and the Science Award of the German Academy for Aviation and Travel Medicine in 2010.

Dr. Basner is Secretary of the International Commission of Biological Effects of Noise (ICBEN). He is a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), the Sleep Research Society (SRS), and the German Sleep Research Society (DGSM). Dr. Basner has been temporary advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO) concerning traffic noise effects on sleep.

Research Interests

Effects of sleep loss on neurobehavioral and cognitive functions, population studies on sleep time and waking activities, effects of traffic noise on sleep and recuperation

Selected Bibliography

Basner, M., Rubinstein, J.: Fitness for duty: A 3 minute version of the Psychomotor Vigilance Test predicts fatigue related declines in luggage screening performance, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, in press

Basner, M., Dinges, D.F.: Maximizing sensitivity of the Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT) to sleep loss. Sleep 34(5): 581-91, 2011.

Griefahn, B., Basner, M.: Traffic noise - effects on sleep and performance. Arbeitsmed Sozialmed Umweltmed 46(4): 280-88, 2011.

Basner, M., Müller, U., Elmenhorst, E.-M.: Single and combined effect of air, road, and rail traffic noise on sleep and recuperation. Sleep 34(1):11-23, 2011.

Brink, M., Schreckenberg, D., Thomann, G., Basner, M.: Aircraft noise indexes for effect oriented noise assessment. Acta Acustica united with Acustica 96(6), 1012-25, 2010.

Elmenhorst, E.-M., Elmenhorst, D., Wenzel, J., Quehl, J., Müller, U., Maaß, H., Vejvoda, M., Basner, M.: Effects of nocturnal aircraft noise on cognitive performance in the following morning: dose-response relationships in laboratory and field. International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health 83, 743-51, 2010.

Basner, M., van den Berg, M., Griefahn, B.: Aircraft noise effects on sleep: Mechanisms, mitigation, and research needs. Noise & Health, 12(47), 95-109, 2010.

Basner, M., Siebert, U.: Markov processes for the prediction of aircraft noise effects on sleep. Medical Decision Making 30(2), 275-89, 2010.

Basner, M.: Arousal threshold determination in 1862: Kohlschütter’s Measurements on the Firmness of Sleep. Sleep Medicine 11(4), 417-22, 2010.

Basner, M., Müller, U., Griefahn, B.: Practical guidance for risk assessment of traffic noise effects on sleep. Applied Acoustics 71(6), 518-22, 2010.

Brink, M., Basner, M., Schierz, C., Spreng, M., Scheuch, K., Bauer, G., Stahel, W.A.: Determining physiological reaction probabilities to noise events during sleep. Somnologie 13(4), 236-43, 2009.

Basner, M.: Validity of aircraft noise induced awakening predictions. Noise Control Engineering Journal 57(5), 524-35, 2009.

Basner, M., Dinges, D.F.: Dubious bargain: Trading sleep for Leno and Letterman. Sleep 32(6), 747-52, 2009.

Basner, M., Müller, U., Elmenhorst, E.-M., Kluge, G., Griefahn, B.: Aircraft noise effects on sleep: A systematic comparison of EEG-awakenings and automatically detected cardiac activations. Physiological Measurement 29(9), 1089-1103, 2008.

Basner, M., Rubinstein, J., Fomberstein, K.M., Coble, M.C., Ecker, A., Avinash, D., Dinges, D.F.: Effects of night work, sleep loss and time on task on simulated threat detection performance. Sleep 31(9), 1251-1259, 2008.

Basner, M.: Nocturnal aircraft noise exposure increases objectively assessed daytime sleepiness. Somnologie 12(2), 110-117, 2008.

Marks, A., Griefahn, B., Basner, M.: Event-related awakenings caused by nocturnal transportation noise. Noise Control Engineering Journal, 56(1), 52-62, 2008.

Griefahn, B., Bröde, P., Marks, A., Basner, M.: autonomic arousals related to traffic noise during sleep. Sleep 31(4), 569-577, 2008.

Basner, M., Griefahn, B., Penzel, T.: Inter-rater agreement in sleep stage classification between centers with different backgrounds. Somnologie 12(1), 75-84, 2008.

Basner, M., Glatz, C., Griefahn, B., Penzel, T., Samel, A.: Aircraft Noise: Effects on  macro- and micro-structure of sleep. Sleep Medicine 9(4), 382-387, 2008.

Basner, M., Griefahn, B., Müller, U., Plath, G., Samel, A.: An ECG-based algorithm for the automatic identification of autonomic activations associated with cortical arousals. Sleep 30(10), 1349-61, 2007.

Basner, M., Fomberstein, K.M., Razavi, F.M., Banks, S., William, J.H., Rosa, R.R., Dinges, D.F.: American Time Use Survey: Sleep time and its relationship to waking activities. Sleep 30(9), 1085-95, 2007.

Basner, M., Siebert, U.: Markov state transition models for the prediction of noise-induced sleep disturbances. Somnologie 10(4), 176-91, 2006.

Quehl, J., Basner, M.: Annoyance from nocturnal aircraft noise exposure: laboratory and field-specific dose-response curves. Journal of Environmental Psychology 26(2), 127-40, 2006.

Basner, M., Isermann, U., Samel, A.: Aircraft noise effects on sleep: application of the results of a large polysomnographic field study. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 119(5), 2772-84, 2006.

Basner, M., Samel, A.: Effects of nocturnal aircraft noise on sleep structure. Somnologie 9(2), 84-95, 2005.