Sleep and immune function
By Luciana Besedovsky, T. Lange, Jan Born. Pflügers Archiv: European Journal of Physiology, 2011
1,045 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Sleep and the circadian system exert a strong regulatory influence on immune functions. Investigations of the normal sleep–wake cycle showed that immune parameters like numbers of undifferentiated naïve T cells and the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines exhibit peaks during early nocturnal sleep whereas circulating numbers of immune cells with immediate effector functions, like cytotoxic natural killer cells, as well as anti-inflammatory cytokine activity peak during daytime wakefulness. Although it is difficult to entirely dissect the influence of sleep from that of the circadian rhythm, comparisons of the effects of nocturnal sleep with those of 24-h periods of wakefulness suggest that sleep facilitates the extravasation of T cells and their possible redistribution to lymph nodes. Moreover, such studies revealed a selectively enhancing influence of sleep on cytokines promoting the interaction between antigen presenting cells and T helper cells, like interleukin-12. Sleep on the night after experimental vaccinations against hepatitis A produced a strong and persistent increase in the number of antigen-specific Th cells and antibody titres. Together these findings indicate a specific role of sleep in the formation of immunological memory. This role appears to be associated in particular with the stage of slow wave sleep and the accompanying pro-inflammatory endocrine milieu that is hallmarked by high growth hormone and prolactin levels and low cortisol and catecholamine concentrations.
Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Endocrine and Autonomic Systems, Immunology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/640e3aac13f37b84e8fd553f6b12764002a52706
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Citations in the corpus
- How might contact with nature promote human health? Promising mechanisms and a possible central pathway (2015, background): “…state of deep relaxation and parasympathetic activity, which improves sleep (El-Sheikh et al., 2013), boosts immune function in a number of ways (Kang et al., 2011), and counters the adverse effects of stress on energy metabolism, insulin secretion, and inflammatory pathways (Bhasin et al., 2013).”
- Why Sleep Is Important for Health: A Psychoneuroimmunology Perspective (2014, background): “…cytokines during the rest period have been observed, often during the early SWS-dominated portion of sleep, in humans as well as in animals, on the mRNA and protein levels in different tissues including the brain, adipose tissue, and lymph nodes (for a review, see Besedovsky et al. 2012).”
- The Sleep-Immune Crosstalk in Health and Disease (2019, background): “Together with other experiments from recent times, these findings suggest an important role of sleep for immune defense (47, 79).”
- Strengthening the Immune System and Reducing Inflammation and Oxidative Stress through Diet and Nutrition: Considerations during the COVID-19 Crisis (2020, background): “In addition to the activation of the inflammatory response and promotion of oxidative stress that are intimately related with the immune system [60,61], the immune system is interrelated with multiple aspects of physiological regulation such as hormonal regulation [62,63], metabolic regulation [64–6”