Noradrenaline: Sleep on it

Sleep involves infra-slow-50-second fluctuations between disengagement and sensory reactivity. New findings reveal that the brain's noradrenaline system controls these dynamics by acting in the thalamus to affect sleep spindles, and by modulating coordinated heart rate variations.

Automated summary

During sleep, the brain's noradrenaline system plays a key role in influencing sleep spindles through the thalamus and regulating coordinated heart rate variations, leading to fluctuations between disengagement and sensory reactivity every 50 seconds.