Sleep

Recent articles

Illustration of a child asleep with brainwave-like lines superimposed above them.

Exploring the connection between autism and sleep

The Transmitter rounds up the latest research on autism and sleep.

By Daisy Yuhas
7 November 2024 | 2 min read
A photograph of Paul-Antoine Libourel.

At the end of the earth with Paul-Antoine Libourel

The French researcher’s accomplishments working with chinstrap penguins in the Antarctic highlight the importance of recording sleep in the wild.

By Yves Sciama
11 June 2024 | 18 min listen
A grid of four brain scans showing excess cerebrospinal fluid.

Is excess brain fluid an early marker of autism?

Brain scans of hundreds of infants suggest that up to 80 percent of those with autism have unusual amounts of cerebrospinal fluid. Researchers are studying how this might contribute to the condition.

By Giorgia Guglielmi
17 August 2023 | 10 min read
An illustration of Ashura Buckley

The sleep/wake cycle and autism with Ashura Buckley

The NIH neurologist talks about her research, her family and how mental health labels can be limiting.

By Brady Huggett
1 July 2023 | 72 min listen
A young woman sleeps at home wearing a Dreem headband and surrounded by stuffed animals.

Capturing autism’s sleep problems with devices nearable and wearable

Next-generation trackers could realize a long-standing research dream: conducting sleep studies in large numbers of autistic people.

By Angie Voyles Askham, Peter Hess
6 June 2023 | 9 min read

Adult Angelman mice get some benefit from boosting UBE3A gene expression

The treatment eases the animals’ sleep troubles, suggesting it has clinically meaningful effects beyond what was thought to be a critical window in early life.

By Angie Voyles Askham
9 February 2023 | 5 min read
Graham Diering smiles in a portrait in his yard.

Asleep in the Mouse House with Graham Diering

Memories from Diering’s life trace the rising star’s scientific path from raising lizards as a child and later exploring home brewing to heading a lab that investigates memory, sleep disturbances and early development in animals with autism-linked mutations.

By Peter Hess
12 January 2023 | 18 min listen
A grid of clocks placed over a colorful gene sequence.

Autism-linked genes clock daily oscillations

Rhythmic variations in the genes’ brain expression levels may help explain the sleep problems that often accompany the condition.

By Sarah DeWeerdt
14 November 2022 | 4 min read
A young girl rubs her eyes in a dark room.

Autistic people at increased genetic risk of sleep problems

Compared with their unaffected siblings and unrelated controls, children with autism harbor more copy number variants in genes that govern the circadian cycle or are associated with insomnia.

By Holly Barker
18 October 2022 | 5 min read
Lab mice (Mus musculus), tribe Balbc, three 13 day old babies with eyes still closed, laying side by side

Sleepy mice with autism-linked mutation struggle to fall asleep

Mice with a mutated copy of SHANK3 fail to establish normal sleep patterns during development.

By Peter Hess
12 September 2022 | 3 min read

Explore more from The Transmitter

Illustration of distorted lines of different colors being pulled into a box where they are smoothed in a single multicolored line.

The Transmitter’s favorite essays and columns of 2024

From sex differences in Alzheimer’s disease to enduring citation bias, experts weighed in on important scientific and practical issues in neuroscience.

By The Transmitter
23 December 2024 | 2 min read
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Say what? The Transmitter’s top quotes of 2024

“We’ve cured mouse-heimer’s thousands of times...”—find out who said this to a Transmitter reporter, and read our other favorite quotes from the past year.

By The Transmitter
23 December 2024 | 2 min read
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The Transmitter’s favorite podcasts of 2024

Our picks include a deep dive into dopamine, the role of PKMzeta in memory, and studying the stomatogastric ganglion.

By The Transmitter
23 December 2024 | 1 min read