ReviewThe Lancet. Neurology2022
Sleep function: an evolutionary perspective.
Review in The Lancet. Neurology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 69 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
69 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 137 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prevalence and influencing factors of insomnia in patients with coronary heart disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Effects of rapid maxillary expansion and functional orthodontic treatment in children with sleep disordered breathing: a systematic review.BMC oral health · 2025Pooled it
- Effect of a nutraceutical combination on sleep quality among people with impaired sleep: a randomised, placebo-controlled trial.Scientific reports · 2024Trial
- Resistance Training Improves Sleep and Anti-Inflammatory Parameters in Sarcopenic Older Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Trial
- Evaluation of Daily Behavioral Patterns and Locomotor Activity in Holstein Dairy Cattle Under Different Physiological Stages and Management Factors.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Invertebrate brains as diversified models for understanding sleep mechanisms and function.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2026Review
- The sleep-wake cycle: molecular mechanisms, disorders, and therapeutic targets in the context of energy metabolism.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2026Review
- Neuronal Syndecan reduction modulates age- and sex-specific changes in sleep architecture and metabolic remodeling in Drosophila melanogaster.Mechanisms of ageing and development · 2026Article
- A genetically encoded sensor of ionic stress links cellular proton dynamics to sleep.Science advances · 2026Article
- Bifurcations and Hyperchaos in Mathematical Models of Sleep.Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- A soft wearable near-infrared spectroscopy system for detecting brain water dynamics linked to glymphatic activity during sleep.Science advances · 2026Article
- A molecular integrator of sleep duration and interruption.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Elevating sleep to a global health priority: The One Sleep Health framework.Cell reports. Medicine · 2026Review
- Physiological Mechanisms in Pregnancy and Their Relevance to the Clinical Management of Perinatal Mental Illness.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- Sleep status among adults.Sleep & breathing = Schlaf & Atmung · 2026Article
- Region-specific pericyte Ca2+ transient dynamics and capillary hemodynamics during the sleep-wake cycle.Sleep · 2026Article
- How negative life-events affect sleep quality of college students: a chain-mediating model.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Insomnia and Incident Cardiovascular Disease in US Hispanic/Latino Adults: Results From HCHS/SOL.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2026Article
- A genetically encoded ionic-stress sensor reveals protons as a sleep driver.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Article
9 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Prospective epidemiological studies in industrial societies indicate that 7 h of sleep per night in people aged 18 years or older is optimum, with higher and lower amounts of sleep predicting a shorter lifespan. Humans living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle (eg, tribal groups) sleep for 6-8 h per night, with the longest sleep durations in winter. The prevalence of insomnia in hunter-gatherer populations is low (around 2%) compared with the prevalence of insomnia in industrial societies (around 10-30%). Sleep deprivation studies, which are done to gain insights into sleep function, are often confounded by the effects of stress. Consideration of the duration of spontaneous daily sleep across species of mammals, which ranges from 2 h to 20 h, can provide important insights into sleep function without the stress of deprivation. Sleep duration is not related to brain size or cognitive ability. Rather, sleep duration across species is associated with their ecological niche and feeding requirements, indicating a role for wake-sleep balance in food acquisition and energy conservation. Brain temperature drops from waking levels during non-rapid eye movement (non-REM) sleep and rises during REM sleep. Average daily REM sleep time of homeotherm orders is negatively correlated with average body and brain temperature, with the largest amount of REM sleep in egg laying (monotreme) mammals, moderate amounts in pouched (marsupial) mammals, lower amounts in placental mammals, and the lowest amounts in birds. REM sleep might, therefore, have a key role in the regulation of temperature and metabolism of the brain during sleep and in the facilitation of alert awakening.
Indexed as
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.