Year: 2025
Type: review
Abstract: Sleep is essentially contributing to human health and well-being through multiple biological functions, including restoration and biosynthesis, brain clearance, energy metabolism, immunological and endocrine processing, synaptic plasticity, memory consolidation, and regulation of cognitive and emotional processes. Sleep disturbances are highly prevalent and are both a symptom and a contributing risk factor for psychiatric, neurological, and somatic disorders. Given the limitations of pharmacological interventions, noninvasive neuromodulation techniques ranging from noninvasive transcranial [transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS), temporal interference stimulation (tTIS), and transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS)] to peripheral sensory (auditory, olfactory, visual, tactile, vestibular) and electrical nerve (galvanic vestibular, transcutaneous vagus nerve, and median nerve) stimulation have gained increasing attention as potential tools to modulate sleep physiology. These techniques offer promising avenues for both therapeutic applications and fundamental research into sleep-dependent neuroplasticity, interregional communication, and oscillatory activity. However, sleep is not a uniform state but a highly complex and dynamic phenomenon, with intricate macrostructural [e.g., non-rapid eye movement (NREM)-rapid eye movement (REM) sleep balance, sleep efficiency] and microstructural (e.g., hierarchically nested slow waves and spindles) characteristics that contribute to a variety of functions. This complexity necessitates precise targeting strategies, often employing real-time brain state-dependent stimulation, to modulate specific sleep-related processes effectively. In this review, we summarize the functions of sleep and the available noninvasive tools for its modulation, addressing key methodological challenges and providing recommendations for best practices in sleep neuromodulation.
Source: Physiological Reviews
Institutions: Radboud University Nijmegen, Radboud University Medical Center, University Hospital Zurich, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Institut für Medizinische Psychologie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Stanford Medicine, Stanford University, University of Bern, Jagiellonian University, University of Fribourg, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Sorbonne Université, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, University Children's Hospital Zurich, Woolcock Institute of Medical Research, Macquarie University
Language: English
Subfield: Neurology
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funders: National Science Foundation, Wellcome Trust, European Commission, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung, Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, Medical Research Council, National Health and Medical Research Council
Awards: G1073158175, The Embodied Dreaming Project - Linking Body Stimulation and Virtual Reality Training to Lucid Dreaming, Processing of musical harmony and sounds during sleep and their effectiveness to improve sleep quality, Atmen um zu konsolidieren: Respiration als Königsweg zum schlafenden Gehirn., Embodied dreams: Links between body and brain during dreaming, FOR 5434: Abstraktion von Information im Schlaf, G434337789, Innovative Neuroscience to Improve Treatment of Sleep Disturbances for Prevention of Depression and Anxiety, Understanding and breaking the chain of disrupted sleep and mental disorders, G7209058494, G7377978483, The Causes and Consequences of Ethnic Cleansing: A Cross-Border Perspective, Sleep 2.0 – towards a new science of human sleep
OpenAlex ID: W4416427484