Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have mapped the brain circuit that connects deep sleep with the secretion of growth hormone.
Science had known for decades that deep sleep was tied to growth hormone release, but the exact mechanism inside the brain remained a mystery.
The research team published the first detailed mapping of the neural circuit in the journal Cell after directly recording neural activity in mice during natural sleep.
Direct neural recording
Xinlu Ding, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Neuroscience at Berkeley and lead author of the study, said the link was previously known only indirectly through blood samples.
Ding said the research team has now recorded the direct neural activity behind this relationship for the first time.
