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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Noise shatters deep sleep thanks to dedicated brain circuit

Neurons that help to rouse you from sound slumber are connected to those that receive signals from the spinal cord.
Shallow focus image of a woman reaching out of bed to turn off her alarm clock, reading 7:00

A vigilant brain circuit makes it possible for sound to jolt deep sleepers awake. Credit: Joe Fox Berlin/Radharc Images/Alamy

How do you hear an alarm if you’re asleep? When a person is awake, the brain’s information-relay centre, known as the thalamus, is largely responsible for sending sound and other external sensory information to the cortex, the region responsible for cognition. But this circuit mostly shuts down during deep sleep.

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Nature 614, 392 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00354-0

References

  1. Shin, A. et al. Curr. Biol. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.01.033 (2023).

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