Biography

Dr. John Winkelman is Chief of the Sleep Disorders Clinical Research Program in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and a Professor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. After graduating from Williams College, he received a PhD in Psychobiology from Harvard University and then an MD from Harvard Medical School. He then completed both a residency in Psychiatry and a fellowship in Neurology (Sleep Medicine) at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Winkelman is an international leader in Sleep Medicine, and he has published more than 100 articles, reviews and book chapters and is also the editor of the major textbook Foundations of Psychiatric Sleep Medicine, Cambridge University Press (2011). His research has focused in two areas: 1) epidemiology, physiology, cardiovascular consequences and treatment of restless legs syndrome (RLS), where his research has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Neurology, and Circulation, and has led to FDA approval of two medications for this common disorder; and 2) the neurobiology and treatment of insomnia. His finding of reduced GABA in the occipital and anterior cingulate cortices was the first demonstration of a neurochemical abnormality in insomnia which he has now expanded into work relating the neurochemistry of insomnia to major depression.

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