Human fMRI experiments reveal differences in the propagation of spontaneous brain activity during sleep versus wakefulness.

Locally recorded calcium events related to slow wave activity show a global cortical fMRI BOLD correlate, establishing a direct relation between a basic neurophysiological signal and the macroscopic perspective of pre-clinical fMRI.

Cortical astrocytes play key roles in NREM sleep by regulating sleep depth and duration through separate GPCR pathways, and differentially control neuronal slow-wave activity in local and remote cortical circuits.

A neural circuit that can selectively induce sleep-like patterns in small regions of the brain demonstrates how sleep and arousal states may be controlled in local brain regions.

Distinct brain states govern resting state functional architecture revealed by neurophysiologically defined simultaneous optic-fiber-based calcium recordings and task-free functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in rats.

The transcription factor, MEF2C, mediates a change in approximately one half of the expressed frontal cortical transcriptome controlling cellular metabolism and synaptic strength in response to acute loss of sleep.

Altered coupling of different brain waves during sleep is associated with worse brain features related to Alzheimer’s disease processes and cognitive performance, suggesting that sleep brain waves coupling may contribute to poorer brain and cognitive trajectories in ageing.

Dynamic calcium activity in the hippocampus changes markedly across behavioral and physiological states and depends on muscarinic acetylcholine receptor activation.

Sleep-encoded vocabulary influences awake decision-making 36 hr later, particularly when targeting the vocabulary to slow-wave troughs, which suggests that unconscious episodic memory formation during deep sleep is possible.

Delivery of auditory triggers as unique slow waves-targeting approach yields efficient, stable, and precise modulation of slow-wave activity in rats.