Feel Sleepy When You’re Sick? That Could Be Your Immune System Kicking In
11:47 minutes
Whether you’re a night owl or an early riser, we all sleep. But for something so universal, we don’t understand much about what makes us sleep. Researchers looking into this question recently found a gene called neumri that triggered sleep in Drosophila flies. That gene produced a protein that is linked to antimicrobial activity. The results were published in the journal Science. Neuroscientist Amita Seghal, who is an author on the study, talks about the role sleep might play in sickness and keeping us healthy.
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Amita Sehgal is an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a professor of Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Alexa Lim is a producer for Science Friday. Her favorite stories involve space, sound, and strange animal discoveries.
John is Executive Editor of the New England News Collaborative. He is also the host of NEXT, a weekly program about New England, and appears weekly on The Wheelhouse, WNPR’s news roundtable program.