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Sleep

·December 19, 2025·4 min read

Emotional Stress Triggers Instant Arousal From Deep Sleep

A new study uncovers a precise brain pathway that rapidly converts emotional stress into sudden wakefulness during NREM sleep. Researchers found that GABAergic neurons in the BNST activate glutamatergic neurons in the DpMe, causing immediate arousal.

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·December 15, 2025·5 min read

Cancer Disrupts the Brain’s Internal Clock

Breast cancer can rapidly derail the brain’s day-night regulation of stress hormones, even before tumors are detectable. In mice, the disease flattens normal corticosterone rhythms by altering hypothalamic neuron activity, which may worsen outcomes and mimic symptoms often seen in cancer patients, such as insomnia and anxiety.

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Featured Neuroscience

·December 13, 2025·6 min read

Blood Sugar Patterns Strongly Linked to Sleep Quality

Blood sugar patterns and dietary choices play a significant role in how well adults sleep. Individuals with diabetes were more likely to experience sleep disorders, poor sleep quality, and irregular sleep duration, with people who have prediabetes showing similar but milder trends.

Featured Neuroscience

·December 11, 2025·5 min read

Boosting Sleep Ripples Helps Preserve Memories Normally Forgotten

A new study shows that precisely manipulating brain activity during sleep can help mice retain memories that would normally fade, offering a potential pathway for treating memory loss conditions. Researchers identified a specific sleep-related pattern—large sharp-wave ripples—that signals when new experiences are being transferred from the hippocampus to the neocortex for long-term storage. By boosting these ripples at just the right moment using optogenetics, scientists enabled mice to remember brief encounters they would typically forget.

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Featured Neuroscience

·December 9, 2025·6 min read

Insufficient Sleep Strongly Predicts Shorter Life Expectancy

A new nationwide analysis shows that getting fewer than seven hours of sleep a night is one of the strongest predictors of shorter life expectancy across U.S. counties. Sleep sufficiency outperformed other behavioral factors—including diet, exercise, and loneliness—with only smoking showing a stronger association.

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Featured Neuroscience

·December 1, 2025·5 min read

Insomnia Keeps the Brain Stuck in Daytime Mode

People with chronic insomnia show a delayed and weakened daily rhythm of mental activity, keeping the brain in a more alert, daytime-like state at night. Under tightly controlled conditions, individuals with insomnia failed to show the normal nighttime drop in goal-directed thinking seen in healthy sleepers.

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Featured Neurology Neuroscience

·November 3, 2025·9 min read

Long-Term Melatonin Use Linked to Higher Heart Failure Risk

A large-scale analysis of more than 130,000 adults with chronic insomnia found that long-term melatonin use—defined as one year or more—was associated with a striking increase in heart failure, hospitalization, and mortality risk. Using global health records, researchers found that melatonin users had about 90% higher odds of developing heart failure and were nearly twice as likely to die from any cause within five years.

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Featured Neuroscience

·November 3, 2025·4 min read

Losing Sleep Might Make You Hungrier and Sleepier Later

New research using fruit flies reveals that sleep loss can trigger both increased eating and sleeping—if the deprivation leads to energy depletion. Flies that lost energy while sleep-deprived compensated with extra rest and food intake, while those deprived without losing energy showed no such rebound.

Featured Neuroscience

·October 29, 2025·8 min read

Your Brain “Zones Out” After Poor Sleep To Clean Itself

New research shows that during moments of lost focus after poor sleep, the brain releases a wave of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)—the same cleansing process that normally occurs during deep sleep. Using simultaneous EEG and fMRI scans, scientists found that these fluid pulses occur precisely when attention lapses, suggesting the brain is attempting to catch up on missed “housekeeping.”

Featured Neuroscience

·October 24, 2025·6 min read

Brain’s Energy Flow Reveals Hidden Coordination During Deep Sleep

New brain imaging research has uncovered how the brain’s energy and activity reorganize as it transitions from wakefulness to deep NREM sleep. Using an advanced tri-modal EEG-PET-MRI approach, scientists found that while cognitive regions quiet down, sensory and motor areas stay active, keeping the brain responsive to the environment.

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Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·October 23, 2025·7 min read

Lack of Sleep in Teens Linked to Higher Suicide Risk

Teenagers who sleep less or experience frequent night awakenings are significantly more likely to attempt suicide later in adolescence, according to a major longitudinal study. Researchers analyzed data from more than 8,500 teens and found that poor sleep at age 14 predicted suicide attempts by age 17, even after accounting for other mental health risk factors.

Featured Neurology Neuroscience

·October 17, 2025·6 min read

Can a Disconnected Brain Be Conscious?

A new study reveals that sleep-like slow-wave brain activity can persist for years in surgically disconnected brain hemispheres of awake epilepsy patients. Using EEG recordings, researchers found that the isolated cortex exhibits patterns similar to deep sleep, anesthesia, or vegetative states—suggesting absent or reduced awareness.