Lectures and seminars Frontiers in Neural Circuits seminar series: with Gero Miesenböck
Title: "The Electron Leak Hypothesis of Sleep". September 10 at 14:00 in room Peter Reichard, Biomedicum.
Welcome all members of Karolinska Institutet, as well as researchers and trainees from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm University, and other universities in the Stockholm region. We warmly encourage students, postdocs, and faculty to attend and engage with our distinguished guest.
Speaker:
Gero Miesenböck, Waynflete Professor of Physiology, Director of the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour, University of Oxford, UK
Time: 10 September, 14:00–15:00
Location: Room Peter Reichard, Biomedicum (level 3), Solnavägen 9, Solna
Title: The Electron Leak Hypothesis of Sleep
Abstract:
Sleep has lacked a unifying mechanistic principle with the explanatory power of the transcription–translation feedback oscillator in circadian biology. Several strands of evidence are now converging on the idea that sleep is inextricably linked to aerobic metabolism. Sleep-promoting neurons estimate the need for sleep cell-autonomously, by monitoring the leakage of electrons from the transport chains of their mitochondria. This regulatory logic suggests that sleep is part of a negative feedback system in which mitochondrial electron leakage generates the need for sleep and is subsequently suppressed by sleep itself.
Recent papers:
A potassium channel β-subunit couples mitochondrial electron transport to sleep.
Kempf A, Song SM, Talbot CB, Miesenböck G
Nature 2019 Apr;568(7751):230-234
Sleep pressure accumulates in a voltage-gated lipid peroxidation memory.
Rorsman HO, Müller MA, Liu PZ, Sanchez LG, Kempf A, Gerbig S, Spengler B, Miesenböck G
Nature 2025 May;641(8061):232-239
A half-center oscillator regulates sleep pressure.
Hasenhuetl, P., Sarnataro, R., Vrontou, E., Rorsman, H.O., Talbot, C.B., Brain, R., and Miesenböck, G.
Nat Neurosci in press. (2026)
Refreshments
Sandwiches and coffee will be provided.
Registration
No registration is needed.