Sleep

Sleep emerges as protective brain factor against urban living stress in new network mapping study A new study published in Neuroscience Bulletin introduces a novel brain mapping technique called exposure network mapping (ENM) to untangle how different environmental factors shape human brain networks. Among the factors examined, sleep stood out as a uniquely protective pattern, […]

Sleep regularity fails to improve after stroke, linked to depression and quality of life Stroke survivors have severely disrupted sleep-wake schedules that do not improve on their own after hospital discharge, according to a new longitudinal study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. The irregularity is associated with higher depression scores and […]

Sleep Need Leaves a Molecular Signature at the Synapse A team led by Stephan Sigrist at Freie Universität Berlin has mapped the molecular landscape of sleep-driven synaptic remodeling with synapse-resolved proteomics and phosphoproteomics, revealing that elevated sleep pressure triggers a coordinated, compartment-specific shift toward dephosphorylation at the presynaptic terminal. The study, published in Proceedings of […]

Cleaning the sleeping brain: Can drugs restore the glymphatic system? A new review in Current Neuropharmacology maps out what goes wrong when the brain’s waste clearance system breaks down — and surveys the drugs that might fix it. The authors, led by Souvik Banerjee and colleagues from Chitkara University, India, argue that aquaporin-4 (AQP4) […]

How melatonin puts the brain to sleep — and what we still don’t know A review published in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care lays out what decades of research have established about melatonin’s role in sleep — and where the evidence still falls short. Melatonin is a neurohormone produced by the […]

How a brainstem toxin model reveals the locus coeruleus’s role in sleep A systematic review of animal studies using the neurotoxin DSP4 finds that selectively destroying the brain’s primary noradrenaline source – the locus coeruleus – produces severe but inconsistent sleep disruptions, and identifies methodological factors that could explain […]

The relationship between poor sleep and Alzheimer’s disease is often described as a link, but a new review in Sleep Medicine argues it is more accurate to call it a vicious cycle. Sleep disruption accelerates Alzheimer’s pathology, and Alzheimer’s pathology in turn degrades sleep, creating a self-reinforcing loop driven […]

The diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease has moved toward biological definitions based on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers and amyloid PET imaging. But lumbar punctures are invasive, and PET scans are expensive. A new study in GeroScience asks whether a simpler, cheaper, and non-invasive measure , the sleep EEG , can […]

Restless legs syndrome (RLS) affects an estimated 5 to 10 percent of adults, causing uncomfortable sensations in the legs and an irresistible urge to move them, particularly at night. Sleep fragmentation is the rule rather than the exception. The standard pharmacological approach relies on dopamine receptor agonists such as […]

Narcolepsy type 1 (NT1) is defined by the loss of orexin-producing neurons in the hypothalamus, leading to excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy, and fragmented nighttime sleep. A definitive diagnosis can be made by measuring orexin levels in cerebrospinal fluid, a test with high specificity. Yet in Australasia, this diagnostic tool […]