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Top Comments: Your Mitochondria Tell You When to Go to Sleep [1]
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Date: 2025-07-20
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A new study published in the journal Nature has shown that, in fruit flies, at least, the prompt for falling asleep is induced by the mitochondria in their brain cells.
Mitochondria are organelles within the cells of all living organisms whose job it is to produce the ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the molecule that provides all the energy that a cell needs to live and do its job. It’s clear that mitochondria were once independent organisms that got incorporated into early eukaryotic cells, as they have their own DNA and reproduce independently of the cell in which they reside. However, they have evolved to become the power plant of every cell in all multicellular life as well as many single-celled organisms. It is within the mitochondria that the oxygen we take in reacts, releasing enough energy to make the ATP needed to run the cell. The reaction with oxygen requires a transfer of electrons, and it has been long known that the work of the mitochondria is driven by charge gradients within. Apparently, after a full day’s work (and then some), mitochondria start leaking electrons, and this plays havoc with the chemistry within the cell.
When the mitochondria of certain sleep-regulating brain cells (studied in fruit flies) become overcharged, they start to leak electrons, producing potentially damaging byproducts known as reactive oxygen species. This leak appears to act as a warning signal that pushes the brain into sleep, restoring equilibrium before damage spreads more widely. ... The researchers found that specialized neurons act like circuit breakers—measuring this mitochondrial electron leak and triggering sleep when a threshold is crossed. By manipulating the energy handling in these cells—either increasing or decreasing electron flow—the scientists could directly control how much the flies slept. … Professor Miesenböck said, "We set out to understand what sleep is for, and why we feel the need to sleep at all. Despite decades of research, no one had identified a clear physical trigger. Our findings show that the answer may lie in the very process that fuels our bodies: aerobic metabolism.”
Understanding why living organisms sleep has been a long-standing puzzle among biologists and other curious people. While many theories have been proposed, few of them have been supported by experimental data. Now, here is evidence that sleep is necessary to maintain the health of cells and to give the mitochondria something like a rest. It is known that lack of sleep correlates with a shorter lifespan, in our species as well as others, so it makes sense.
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