{"id":219489,"date":"2025-08-06T00:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T05:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/brain-cells-controlling-stress-switch-on-and-off-in-hourly-cycles"},"modified":"2025-08-06T00:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T05:14:08","slug":"brain-cells-controlling-stress-switch-on-and-off-in-hourly-cycles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/brain-cells-controlling-stress-switch-on-and-off-in-hourly-cycles","title":{"rendered":"Brain cells controlling stress switch on and off in hourly cycles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/brain-cells-controlling-stress-switch-on-and-off-in-hourly-cycles2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>University of Otago \u014ct\u0101kou Whakaihu Waka-led research has found stress-controlling brain cells switch on and off in a steady rhythm about once every hour\u2014even when nothing stressful is happening.<\/p>\n<p>Senior author Associate Professor Karl Iremonger, of Otago\u2019s Department of Physiology and Center for Neuroendocrinology, says these rhythms shape <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/activity+patterns\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">activity patterns<\/a> and alertness.<\/p>\n<p>These bursts of brain cell activity seem to act like a natural \u2018wake-up\u2019 signal, and often lead to a rise in <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/stress+hormones\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">stress hormones<\/a>, or cortisol.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>University of Otago \u014ct\u0101kou Whakaihu Waka-led research has found stress-controlling brain cells switch on and off in a steady rhythm about once every hour\u2014even when nothing stressful is happening. Senior author Associate Professor Karl Iremonger, of Otago\u2019s Department of Physiology and Center for Neuroendocrinology, says these rhythms shape activity patterns and alertness. These bursts of [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}