Neuroscientists studying the shifts between sleep and awareness are finding many liminal states, which could help explain the disorders that can result when sleep transitions go wrong Yasemin ...

New research suggests that the consequences of sleep deprivation may lie in the brain’s structure rather than solely in the ...

You can see it coming in right there, that little spot,” says neuroscientist and engineer Laura Lewis. A remarkably bright pulsing dot has appeared on the monitor in front of us. We are watching, in ...

The pillow is cold against your cheek. Your upstairs neighbor creaks across the ceiling. You close your eyes; shadows and light dance across your vision. A cat sniffs at a piece of cheese. Dots fall ...

Two particular phases in your nightly routine seem to play outsize roles in cognitive health. By Mohana Ravindranath A good night’s sleep isn’t just about the number of hours you log. Getting quality ...

For adults in midlife, difficulty getting to sleep and waking up too early may accelerate brain atrophy that is associated with dementia. The brain naturally begins to atrophy beginning in one’s 30s ...

It’s easy to ask: “Why sleep?” But we can also turn the question on its head: “Why wake?” We need to be awake, among other reasons, to find and eat food, drink water, escape danger, reproduce, and ...

It’s been known for millennia that the human body accumulates waste as a result of day-to-day functioning, but it’s now recognized that the awake, active brain also builds up waste that negatively ...

An “extraordinary” brain network discovery shows that Parkinson’s disease may not be a movement disorder after all ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. The pillow is cold against your cheek. Your upstairs neighbor creaks across the ceiling. You close your eyes; shadows and light dance ...