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Category: neuroscience

New study locates neuron clusters that help the brain repay sleep debt

Sleeping deeply into the afternoon after an all-nighter or a late night out is one way the body repays its sleep debt. The sleep-wake cycle is regulated by a homeostatic process in which the body continuously adjusts its physiological systems to maintain a balanced state of rest and alertness.

A new study identified a specific group of neurons called REVglut2 located in the center of the brain, in the thalamus, that may help us uncover how lost sleep is recovered in animals.

The researchers found that in mice, this circuit, consisting of excitatory neurons, is triggered during and induces drowsy behavior, followed by that can last for hours.

Zoning out could be beneficial—and may actually help us learn faster

Aimlessly wandering around a city or exploring the new mall may seem unproductive, but new research from HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus suggests it could play an important role in how our brains learn.

By simultaneously recording the activity of tens of thousands of neurons, a team of scientists from the Pachitariu and Stringer labs discovered that learning may occur even when there are no specific tasks or goals involved.

Published in Nature, the new research finds that as animals explore their environment, neurons in the visual cortex—the brain area responsible for processing —encode visual features to build an internal model of the world. This information can speed up learning when a more concrete task arises.

A universal sleep pattern could help strengthen and separate memories

Although we know sleep is essential to our physical and mental well-being, it remains an incredibly enigmatic behavior, scientifically speaking. Researchers at the University of Michigan, however, may have developed a new hypothesis to account for one of sleep’s looming mysteries.

Every living thing that sleeps appears to follow the same basic pattern. From wakefulness, organisms transition to a repeating cycle of sleep with low followed by a stage where our brains are harder at work, among other things, generating vivid dreams. Humans’ eyes also dance around behind our eyelids during that high-activity stage, which is why it’s referred to as (REM) sleep.

Although there are a few notable exceptions—including people with narcolepsy and people who haven’t slept in days—this repeating non-REM to REM sleep cycle is remarkably prevalent across the .

PET imaging links brain inflammation to speech disorder and Parkinson-like syndrome

A novel PET imaging approach has revealed distinct patterns of brain inflammation in patients with progressive apraxia of speech (PAOS), a rare neurodegenerative disorder that affects speech planning. These findings provide new insight into how neuroinflammation and tau pathology may drive disease progression in PAOS, opening potential avenues for earlier diagnosis and targeted treatments.

This research was presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging 2025 Annual Meeting and published as a supplement in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

PAOS is a neurodegenerative disorder that impairs the brain’s ability to plan and coordinate speech. It is marked by a slow speaking rate, distorted sounds, and effortful facial movements during speech. Patients with PAOS are likely to have Parkinson-plus syndrome in the later stages, meeting criteria for or corticobasal syndrome, and typically have a 4-repeat tauopathy at autopsy.

Top-down attention and Alzheimer’s pathology affect cortical selectivity during learning, influencing episodic memory in older adults

Task-evoked dorsal attention network activity and AD pathology influence memory formation in cognitively unimpaired older adults.

Detailed imaging of key receptors suggests new avenue for repairing brain function

For the first time, scientists using cryo-electron microscopy have discovered the structure and shape of key receptors connecting neurons in the brain’s cerebellum, which is located behind the brainstem and plays a critical role in functions such as coordinating movement, balance and cognition.

The research, published in Nature, provides new insight that could lead to the development of therapies to repair these structures when they are disrupted either by injury or affecting —sitting, standing, walking, running, and jumping—learning and memory.

The study, by scientists at Oregon Health & Science University, reveals the organization of a specific type of glutamate receptor—a that conveys signals between neurons and is considered the primary excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain—bound together with proteins clustered on synapses, or junctions, between neurons in the cerebellum.

Simple insulin resistance test may also predict cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s patients

Insulin resistance detected by routine triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index can flag people with early Alzheimer’s who are four times more likely to present rapid cognitive decline, according to new research presented at the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) Congress 2025.

Neurologists at the University of Brescia reviewed records of 315 non-diabetic patients with cognitive deficits, including 200 with biologically confirmed Alzheimer’s disease. All subjects underwent an assessment of insulin resistance using the TyG index and a clinical follow-up of three years.

The work is published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia.

Earwax Biomarkers for Early Parkinson’s Disease Detection

Most treatments for Parkinson’s disease (PD) only slow disease progression. Early intervention for the neurological disease that worsens over time is therefore critical to optimize care, but that requires early diagnosis. Current tests, like clinical rating scales and neural imaging, can be subjective and costly. Now, researchers in ACS’ Analytical Chemistry report the initial development of a system that inexpensively screens for PD from the odors in a person’s earwax.

Previous research has shown that changes in sebum, an oily substance secreted by the skin, could help identify people with PD. Specifically, sebum from people with PD may have a characteristic smell because volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released by sebum are altered by disease progression — including neurodegeneration, systemic inflammation and oxidative stress.

However, when sebum on the skin is exposed to environmental factors like air pollution and humidity, its composition can be altered, making it an unreliable testing medium. But the skin inside the ear canal is kept away from the elements. So, Hao Dong, Danhua Zhu and colleagues wanted to focus their PD screening efforts on earwax, which mostly consists of sebum and is easily sampled.

Scientists uncover kidney-to-brain route for Parkinson’s-related protein spread

A groundbreaking study suggests that Parkinson’s disease may begin in the kidneys, where a toxic protein builds up and travels to the brain. This discovery could reshape our understanding of the disease’s origins and risk factors.