Picard, Katherine, Dolhan, Kira, Watters, Jyoti J et al. · Advances in neurobiology · 2024 · DOI
This review examines how microglia—immune cells in the brain and spinal cord—affect sleep and sleep disorders. The authors discuss how sleep problems and lack of sleep can harm brain health and potentially lead to diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. They specifically look at how microglia may be involved in ME/CFS and other sleep disorders, and what happens to these immune cells when people don't get enough sleep.
Sleep problems are a hallmark feature of ME/CFS, yet the underlying biological mechanisms remain poorly understood. This review suggests that microglial immune activation may contribute to sleep disturbances in ME/CFS, offering a potential biological pathway to investigate and potentially target with future treatments.
This review synthesizes existing literature but does not present new experimental data or clinical trials. It does not prove that microglia are the sole cause of sleep disorders in ME/CFS or establish definitive causation—only associations and proposed mechanisms from other studies. The generalizability of findings across different sleep disorders and ME/CFS subtypes remains unclear.
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Primary citation
Picard, Katherine, Dolhan, Kira, Watters, Jyoti J, & Tremblay, Marie-Ève (2024). Microglia and Sleep Disorders.. Advances in neurobiology. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55529-9_20
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-picard-2024-microglia-sleep,
author = {Picard, Katherine and Dolhan, Kira and Watters, Jyoti J and Tremblay, Marie-Ève},
title = {Microglia and Sleep Disorders.},
journal = {Advances in neurobiology},
year = {2024},
doi = {10.1007/978-3-031-55529-9_20},
note = {PubMed: 39207702},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/picard-2024-microglia-sleep},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-25. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/picard-2024-microglia-sleep
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