A Master Class on Sleep

Yo-El Ju is the Barbara Burton and Reuben Morris Professor of Neurology at Washington University, St. Louis. She got her AB from Harvard and MD from Columbia and actively practices sleep medicine and is a prolific researcher, one of the top sleep scientists in the country. Here are some of the topics we discussed and a few related hyperlinked citations:—Importance of Deep Sleep (and her paper on what happens when deep sleep is purposely disrupted, how it is modulated, effect of alcohol —The Orexin Antagonist drugs that promote sleep (and a study that shows they can reduce p-tau217 and other neuroinflammation markers—Link of sleep regularity with less all-cause, cardiovascular, and cancer related mortalityFigure 3.9 from SUPER AGERS (SRI-sleep regularity index) More things we discussed:—A sleep foundation model that predicts 130 diseases—Impact of menopause on sleep—Getting to sleep vs staying asleep—Role of naps—Impact of interruptions of sleep—Sleep apnea and new interventions—Vagal nerve stimulation and sleep—Cerebrospinal fluid wave that occurs during attention lapse after poor sleep—cognitive behavioral therapy for improved sleep —Wearables, sleep scores, and effect on sleep—Any supplements that help sleep?—The rare genetically endowed short sleepersThank you Jeoffry Gordon, MD, MPH, Dr. Sara Wolfson, Lynn L, Vau Geha, Bernie Newman, and more than 600 others for tuning into my live video with Yo-El Ju! Join me for my next live video in the app.**************************************************Thanks to Ground Truths subscribers (> 200,000) from every US state and 210 countries. Your subscription to these free essays and podcasts makes my work in putting them together worthwhile. Please join!If you found this interesting PLEASE share it!Paid subscriptions are voluntary and all proceeds from them go to support Scripps Research. They do allow for posting comments and questions, which I do my best to respond to. Please don’t hesitate to post comments and give me feedback. Let me know topics that you would like to see covered.Many thanks to those who have contributed—they have greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for the past two years. It enabled us to accept and support 47 summer interns in 2025! We aim to accept even more of the several thousand who will apply for summer 2026.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++I also want to thank the National Academies of Science, Medicine and Engineering for their recent recognition. Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe