ArticleScience advances2020
Unraveling why we sleep: Quantitative analysis reveals abrupt transition from neural reorganization to repair in early development.
Article in Science advances, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 54 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
54 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 98 citations in OpenAlex.
- Sensory-based interventions in the NICU: systematic review of effects on preterm brain development.Pediatric research · 2022Pooled it
- Infants' Sleep Supports the Emergence and Mastery of Locomotor and Linguistic Skills.Developmental psychobiology · 2026Article
- Metabolic expenditure, neurodevelopment, and weight gain into early childhood after fetal growth restriction.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Connectome-Based Predictive Models Optimized for Sleep Differentiate Patients With Depression From Psychiatrically Healthy Controls.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2026Article
- REM-sleep twitching in adults and the maintenance of specialized sensorimotor systems.Current biology : CB · 2026Review
- Article
- Sleep deprivation impairs follicular development attributable to granulosa cell pyroptosis mediated by S100A8/A9-driven macrophage M1 polarization.Science advances · 2026Article
- Article
- Association between fetal eye movement density and developmental problems at age 3 years.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- The impact of sleep in high-risk infants.Pediatric research · 2025Review
- Association Between Sleep Duration and Angina Characteristics in United States Adults.American journal of medicine open · 2025Article
- A switch in arousal circuit architecture shapes sleep across the lifespan.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Developmental sleep reallocation enables metabolic adaptation in desert flies.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Cortical activation and functional connectivity in patients with chronic insomnia based on working memory tasks: a multi-channel near-infrared spectroscopy study.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Wake EEG oscillation dynamics reflect both sleep pressure and brain maturation across childhood and adolescence.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Pediatric sleep electrophysiology: Using polysomnography in developmental cognitive neuroscience.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2025Review
- A Comparative Study of the Effect of Anxiety, Stress and Poor Sleep on Multipara and Nullipara Pregnant Women.Cureus · 2025Article
- Cholinergic modulation of neural networks supports sequential and complementary roles for NREM and REM states in memory consolidation.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Local versus global sleep organization and the quest to determine sleep function.Neurobiology of sleep and circadian rhythms · 2025Article
- Excitatory/Inhibitory imbalance as a mechanism linking autism and sleep problems.Current opinion in neurobiology · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Sleep serves disparate functions, most notably neural repair, metabolite clearance and circuit reorganization. Yet the relative importance remains hotly debated. Here, we create a novel mechanistic framework for understanding and predicting how sleep changes during ontogeny and across phylogeny. We use this theory to quantitatively distinguish between sleep used for neural reorganization versus repair. Our findings reveal an abrupt transition, between 2 and 3 years of age in humans. Specifically, our results show that differences in sleep across phylogeny and during late ontogeny (after 2 or 3 years in humans) are primarily due to sleep functioning for repair or clearance, while changes in sleep during early ontogeny (before 2 or 3 years) primarily support neural reorganization and learning. Moreover, our analysis shows that neuroplastic reorganization occurs primarily in REM sleep but not in NREM. This developmental transition suggests a complex interplay between developmental and evolutionary constraints on sleep.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.