Sleep

The relationship between screen time and sleep in early adolescence may be less straightforward than commonly assumed, according to a new study that used objective measurements for both screen use and sleep. The findings, published in Technology, Mind, and Behavior, suggest that total screen time is modestly associated with later bedtimes and greater day-to-day variability […]

Urolithin A reverses sleep deprivation-induced cognitive decline and anxiety by blocking hippocampal ferroptosis Urolithin A (UA), a gut-microbiota-derived metabolite of ellagitannins found in pomegranates and berries, prevents the cognitive impairments and anxiety-like behaviors caused by chronic sleep deprivation in mice by suppressing iron-dependent cell death (ferroptosis) in the hippocampus, researchers report in Phytomedicine. The study […]

Smaller circadian amplitude predicts elevated leptin in Arctic residents, independent of photoperiod The reduced amplitude of circadian rhythms in wrist temperature, physical activity, and light exposure is independently associated with elevated morning leptin levels in residents of the Arctic, regardless of the extreme seasonal changes in day length, according to a new study in Chronobiology […]

Pupillary response to light progressively declines from healthy aging to REM sleep behavior disorder to Parkinson’s disease The melanopsin-mediated pupillary light response shows a graded reduction from healthy controls to patients with isolated REM sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) to those with Parkinson’s disease (PD), making it a potential non-invasive biomarker for early synucleinopathy, according to […]

Sleep initiation and continuity, not just duration, linked to cognitive performance in euthymic bipolar disorder Objective measures of sleep initiation difficulty and night-time wakefulness are independently associated with poorer cognitive performance across multiple domains in people with bipolar disorder, even when mood symptoms are stable, according to a 21-day actigraphy study in the International Journal […]

IV iron therapy at doses of 1000 mg or more significantly reduces restless legs syndrome severity, review finds Intravenous ferric carboxymaltose (FCM) at a cumulative dose of at least 1000 mg produces meaningful reductions in restless legs syndrome (RLS) symptom severity and improves quality of life in patients with moderate-to-severe disease or those intolerant to […]

Non-contact radar simultaneously estimates sleep duration and apnea severity with clinical-grade accuracy Millimeter-wave radar (MWR) can simultaneously estimate both sleep-disordered breathing severity and total sleep time without any body contact, achieving clinically acceptable agreement with gold-standard polysomnography (PSG), according to a new study in Sleep Biological Rhythms. The finding addresses a growing clinical challenge: patients […]

Rare coding variants reveal 260 genes linked to sleep — including 24 never before reported The largest rare-variant analysis of sleep genetics to date has identified 260 genes associated with human sleep phenotypes, including 29 genes linked specifically to sleep medication use — 24 of which have no prior association with any sleep trait. The […]

Acupuncture activates GABA neurons in the thalamic reticular nucleus to treat insomnia, mouse study shows A new mechanistic study from Chinese researchers provides some of the strongest evidence yet that acupuncture improves sleep by directly activating GABAergic neurons in the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN), a brain region long recognized as a gatekeeper of sleep and […]

Obstructive sleep apnea and perinatal outcomes in a Japanese pregnancy cohort Lead. Obstructive sleep apnea may be more common among pregnant women with lower body mass index than previously assumed, according to a new prospective study of a Japanese cohort. The findings suggest that screening thresholds developed largely in Western populations may miss cases in […]