Sleep

Scientists in Japan report that memory consolidation during REM sleep may rely on only a handful of adult-born neurons. Their findings point to a highly selective and precisely timed neural process involved in turning fear experiences into stable memories.

Just one night of poor sleep is enough to disrupt your hunger hormones, slow your metabolism, and weaken your brain's impulse control. A sleep scientist explains the rapid biological cascade that pushes you toward weight gain—and how to reverse it.

New research suggests that sleep habits may influence the communities of bacteria that inhabit the mouth. People who reported shorter nightly sleep had fewer types of microbes and different patterns of bacterial abundance compared to those with recommended sleep duration.

Scientists are uncovering how sleep affects brain health. In people with narcolepsy, brain scans reveal slow, rhythmic pulsations during wakefulness, hinting that a hormone missing in this condition may be tied to brain fluid clearance.

Researchers found that veterans whose sleepiness scores worsened over time faced increased mortality risk. Using data from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the study suggests that new-onset daytime sleepiness could signal underlying health decline, particularly among older adults.

A new study suggests that personality traits like neuroticism and openness to experience may shape how severely people experience insomnia. But anxiety appears to explain much of the link, pointing to a more complex psychological pathway than previously assumed.

New research from Harvard scientists suggests that sleep helps the brain strengthen newly learned motor skills by boosting spindle activity in the exact regions involved during learning. The greater the increase in this activity, the more participants improved after napping.

Can mindfulness reshape the sleeping brain? A new study finds that elderly expert meditators not only sleep longer but also show brain patterns during rest and sleep that suggest deeper stability, preserved cognition, and possibly even sustained awareness while unconscious.

Researchers have found that listening to music after learning can influence memory in unexpected ways. Emotional arousal triggered by the music may enhance either general or detailed recall—but not both—depending on the strength of the listener’s emotional response.

Sexual dreams often mirror waking psychological patterns. University students who scored higher in sensation seeking, extraversion, and neuroticism tended to report more vivid, joyful, or unusual sexual dreams, while anxiety and depression fueled more aversive and unsettling experiences.

Preliminary findings from a Canadian sleep lab indicate that cannabis use may be associated with hypersomnia-like patterns on the multiple sleep latency test. Though non-significant, the trends raise concerns about diagnostic accuracy in patients who consume cannabis near testing.

A new study indicates that adolescents who get less sleep tend to show disrupted brain connectivity—and may be more likely to develop behavioral problems over time. The findings suggest that improving sleep could be one way to reduce mental health...

A study of adults with anxiety found that cannabis products with higher cannabidiol (CBD) content tended to improve mood and sleep regardless of inflammation, while the effects of THC-dominant cannabis varied with participants’ baseline inflammatory status.

Researchers have found that children and young adolescents with higher anxiety tend to generalize negative memories more after sleep, raising questions about how nighttime memory processes could reinforce anxiety-related thought patterns during a sensitive developmental stage.

People who score higher on neuroticism are more likely to experience frequent nightmares, according to research published in Dreaming.