Regulation of sleep homeostasis by sexual arousal
- Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Abstract
In all animals, sleep pressure is under continuous tight regulation. It is universally accepted that this regulation arises from a two-process model, integrating both a circadian and a homeostatic controller. Here we explore the role of environmental social signals as a third, parallel controller of sleep homeostasis and sleep pressure. We show that, in Drosophila melanogaster males, sleep pressure after sleep deprivation can be counteracted by raising their sexual arousal, either by engaging the flies with prolonged courtship activity or merely by exposing them to female pheromones.
Article and author information
Author details
Esteban J Beckwith
Giorgio F Gilestro
Funding
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/M003930/1)
- Alice S French
- Giorgio F. Gilestro
European Molecular Biology Organization (ALTF 57-2014)
- Esteban J Beckwith
H2020 European Research Council (705930)
- Esteban J Beckwith
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/J014575/1)
- Quentin Geissmann
- Giorgio F. Gilestro
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2017, Beckwith et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Regulation of sleep homeostasis by sexual arousal
eLife 6:e27445.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.27445
