Nat Neurosci. 2023 Apr 20. doi: 10.1038/s41593-023-01313-8. Online ahead of print.

Do all norepinephrine surges disrupt sleep?

Anita Lüthi ¹, Paul Franken ², Stephany Fulda ³, Francesca Siclari ^4 5 6, Eus J W Van Someren ^4 7 8

ARISING FROM: C. Kjaerby et al. Nature Neuroscience https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-023-01314-7 (2023). Excessive fragmentation of sleep by arousals negatively impacts health. In a recent study in mice, Kjaerby et al. interpret surges of norepinephrine as sleep-fragmenting arousals. As a group of researchers working on human and rodent sleep, we caution against the interpretation that all sleep-related norepinephrine surges invariably indicate arousal. More work is needed to distinguish norepinephrinergic activity characterizing sound versus fragmented sleep.

• PMID: 37081297
• DOI: 10.1038/s41593-023-01313-8