Confocal image of an adult female Drosophila showing the gut, ovaries and central nervous system. Following oxidative stress, cytokine-response signaling (in magenta) is activated in both the gut (middle) and brain (top right), illustrating a brain cytokine signaling response to intestinal oxidative stress. Cytoskeleton and nuclei are shown in green and blue, respectively. Image credit: Malita et al. (CC BY 4.0)
When we are sick, we often feel tired or sleepy. This sickness-induced sleep is a deeply conserved response across species that helps the body recover. While the immune system and the brain must somehow communicate to make this happen, we still know little about how signals from a sick body reach the brain to change sleep behavior.
The gut, for instance, plays an important role in health and illness, and inflammation in the gut is known to affect mental health and sleep. However, we do not fully understand how this inflammation might influence brain activity. To find out more, Malita et al. used the fruit fly Drosophila as a model to investigate how stress and inflammation in the gut might affect sleep, focusing on hormone-like signaling molecules called cytokines, which are involved in immune response and inflammation.
The researchers genetically engineered flies to eliminate the release of specific cytokines from the endocrine cells of the gut and tracked the animals’ sleep and activity patterns. They next exposed flies to a chemical that triggers oxidative stress and inflammatory responses in the gut and monitored how this affected sleep. The flies were then dissected and stained for further immunohistochemical studies and confocal microscopy imaging.
The results revealed that oxidative stress triggers the release of specific cytokines from endocrine cells in the lining of the gut as part of an immune and inflammatory response. These cytokines travel through the body’s circulatory system and activate a signaling pathway in glial cells that form the blood-brain barrier – the protective layer surrounding the brain. This pathway promotes sleep during intestinal stress and inflammation, likely to support recovery. Under healthy conditions, however, the same cytokine signals help keep the animal awake.
Malita et al. reveal a connection between the gut and the brain through which the intestine communicates its health status to the brain, enabling the animal to adjust its behaviors, such as sleep, in response to internal signals like inflammation or oxidative stress.
These findings help us understand how gut health influences sleep and mental well-being, and they may shed light on the sleep disturbances that often afflict people with gut disorders. While this work was done in fruit flies, the cytokine signaling pathways involved in disease exist in a similar form in humans. Further research is needed to determine whether similar gut-to-brain communication pathways that regulate sleep under conditions of intestinal illness exist in humans, which could eventually inform new strategies for managing sleep or mood disorders linked to gut inflammation.
