Raffaele Sarnataro

Presynaptic Release Probability Determines the Need for Sleep https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.16.682770v1

Excited to share our new #biorxivpreprint:
“Sexual dimorphism in the complete connectome of the Drosophila male central nervous system” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We describe the #connectomics reconstruction and analysis of an entire adult #maleCNS #drosophila central nervous system. 1/10

😂 I think metabolic reactions hate everyone

Thank you, luckily it didn't put you to sleep during the reading! 💤

Mitochondria set ‘ancient’ metabolic thermostat for sleep in flies, separate from circadian rhythms During waking hours, a specialized set of sleep neurons in the fly brain accumulates reactive oxygen species, which eventually trigger sleep to clean up and repair the damage they do.

Sleep might be an “inescapable consequence” of aerobic metabolism, new findings in fruit flies suggest.

By @vcallier.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/sleep/mitoch...

✨ Now out in Biomedical Optics Express: Cleared tissue dual-view oblique plane microscopy 🔬: doi.org/10.1364/BOE.... (🧵1/6)

Happy to have given a tiny contribution (as tiny as a fly brain!) to this new light-sheet microscopy technology.
Congratulations to @ld-light.bsky.social and the whole team

💡 Some open questions:
❓ Are mitochondrial state changes always causal in sleep (or other homeostatic behaviours) regulation, or secondary to altered neuronal activity?
🧠 Are there gradients of mitochondrial properties across neuron types and circuits, relevant to behaviours? #Neuroscience #Sleep

Thanks also to the
@physoc.bsky.social
for funding it and for granting me a Conference Attendance Award supporting my participation and oral communication; P. Hasenhuetl, R. Klemm, and G. Miesenböck for feedback on the draft; and the reviewers for their helpful comments
@oxforddpag.bsky.social

I would like to thank Prof. Rasmus Petersen, Prof. Ricardo Maravall, and Dr Riccardo Storchi for organising the meeting "Breakthroughs in Understanding Natural Behaviour and its Neural Underpinnings" which prompted this collection of reviews.

I also comment on our latest findings about mitochondria in fly sleep-control dFBNs, with my perspective on their neuroenergetic dynamics in light of the recent literature. 🪰
@medsci.ox.ac.uk @ox.ac.uk

I summarise cross-species experimental findings on how mitochondrial morphology, trafficking, and turnover relate to sleep and, more broadly, to behavioural homeostasis, and I examine the underlying neurobiology.

Neurobiology of mitochondrial dynamics in sleep Abstract figure legend In neurons, variations in sleep history are accompanied by alterations in mitochondrial dynamics, including changes in size, fission and fusion events, the emergence of extra-l...

🚨 What's the interplay between sleep and mitochondrial dynamics in neurons?
I am happy to share this invited review I wrote for The Journal of Physiology
@jphysiol.bsky.social
👉 physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
🧵 Thread 👇
#Neuroscience #SleepResearch

A cosa serve il sonno? La risposta può essere nel metabolismo neuronale Perché dormiamo? La risposta a questa domanda rimane uno dei grandi misteri della biologia. Come scrisse il neurofisiologo Alan Rechtschaffen: «Se il sonno non avesse una funzione assolutamente vitale...

Un nuovo studio condotto in D. melanogaster rivela che il bisogno di sonno potrebbe nascere direttamente dal metabolismo dei neuroni. Il sonno, insomma, sarebbe una conseguenza inevitabile della respirazione cellulare

www.scienzainrete.it/articolo/cos...

‘Stealth flippers’ helped this extinct mega-predator stalk its prey Hear the biggest stories from the world of science | 16 July 2025

Tired? Well that sleepy feeling may be driven by 'leaky' mitochondria, according to a new study.

I spoke to Gero Miesenboeck from @ox.ac.uk for @nature.com all about the new study.

It's here on the Nature Podcast at 12:11:

Thanks for pointing out this study... It really seems restorative sleep crucially engages a metabolic response!

Beautiful work, congratulations!

Photos of SWC Emerging Neuroscientists Seminar Series 2025/26 winners; Dimokratis Karamanlis, Sonja Blumenstock, Saurabh Vyas, Raffaele Sarnataro & Peter S. Hasenhuetl

Congratulations to the SWC Emerging Neuroscientists Seminar Series winners!

- Dimokratis Karamanlis, University of Geneva
- @rafsarnataro.bsky.social‬ & Peter S. Hasenhuetl, @ox.ac.uk
- Saurabh Vyas, @columbiauniversity.bsky.social
- @sblumenstock.bsky.social‬, University of California San Diego

Our brain's mitochondria may play a crucial role in the onset of sleep Textbooks say that mitochondria exist to supply cells with energy, but experiments in fruit flies suggest they are also involved in sleep

Mitochondria may have been labelled the "energy powerhouses" of cells, but they also seem to have an underappreciated role in sleep.

Thanks @dereklowe.bsky.social for featuring our work in @science.org blog "The Pipeline"

Mitochondrial origins of the pressure to sleep Nature - Research on Drosophila neurons shows links between the need to sleep and aerobic metabolism, indicating that the pressure to sleep may have a mitochondrial origin.

Thanks for featuring our work!
rdcu.be/eyCv5

Thanks for sharing our work!

Thanks for sharing our work!

Thanks for sharing our work!

Thanks, and great way to put it!

Thanks for sharing our work!

Thanks, Nick! I could not have asked for better colleagues!

18/ Finally, some press release: from @oxforddpag.bsky.social www.dpag.ox.ac.uk/news/why-do-...; the @economist.com www.economist.com/science-and-... @scienmag.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/scie...; on @science.org newsletter ScienceAdviser @nerdychristie.bsky.social www.science.org/content/arti...

17/ all the kind sharers of fly strains; reviewers for their work and suggestions improving this paper; @wellcometrust.bsky.social for my personal funding.

16/ the many facilities of @medsci.ox.ac.uk the Don Mason Facility of Flow Cytometry and the Light Microscopy Facility, Micron, the Genomics Centre, @hhmijanelia.bsky.social, Zantiks, @vincentcroset.bsky.social, C. Treiber and @scottishwaddell.bsky.social for advice on scRNA-seq