Sleep as a Regulator of Stress and Emotion: Neurobiological Mechanisms of a Bidirectional Relationship

Sleep and the brain’s capacity to process stress and regulate emotion are deeply intertwined. Psychosocial and physiological stressors disrupt sleep architecture, while disrupted sleep in turn impairs emotional regulation, threat appraisal, and stress coping. Although this bidirectional relationship is well-documented behaviourally and clinically, the underlying neurobiological mechanisms - spanning molecular, cellular, and circuit-level processes - remain incompletely understood.A central but under-explored dimension is individual variability. People differ markedly in sleep need, sleep architecture, stress reactivity, and emotional resilience, and these differences predict long-term mental health outcomes and psychiatric vulnerability. Characterising the associative and causal links among these domains is critical to understanding why some individuals are robust to sleep loss and stress while others are highly susceptible.This Research Topic aims to advance our mechanistic understanding of the biological links between sleep and the brain’s capacity for adaptation, with a particular emphasis on emotional regulation, stress processing, and resilience. While related collections in this section have explored sleep–metabolism–mental health intersections more broadly, this Topic is specifically focused on the neurobiology of stress responsivity and affective processing, with attention to the bidirectional and individually variable nature of these relationships.We welcome Original Research, comprehensive Reviews, Mini-Reviews, Methods papers, Perspectives, Hypothesis & Theory, and Meta-analyses across the following themes (not limited to):o Sleep as a causal and modulating factor - how variations in sleep quantity, quality, REM/NREM architecture, and slow-wave activity actively modulate, preserve, or disrupt emotional processing, fear extinction, and neural responses to stress.o Sleep dynamics in response to stress and trauma - how acute or chronic stress, emotional trauma, and diverse affective states alter subsequent sleep patterns, and how these sleep changes drive adverse behavioural or psychological outcomes.o Neurocircuit mechanisms - circuit-level contributions of the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, hypothalamus, and brainstem arousal systems to the sleep-stress-emotion triad.o HPA axis and neuroendocrine signalling - interactions between cortisol/corticosterone rhythms, sleep architecture, and affective state.o Molecular and cellular mechanisms - clock gene, neurotransmitter, neuropeptide, and neuromodulator contributions to stress-induced sleep changes and emotion regulation.o Synaptic plasticity and memory consolidation - the role of sleep-dependent plasticity in fear learning, extinction, and emotional memory processing.o Individual variability and resilience - genetic, epigenetic, developmental, and environmental predictors of differential vulnerability or resilience to sleep loss and stress.o Sex-, age-, and lifespan-specific effects - how the sleep-stress-emotion relationship evolves across development, adulthood, and aging.o Translational and animal models - rodent and other model systems that elucidate causal mechanisms and inform human relevance.o Methodological advances - new tools (EEG/EMG, neuroimaging, optogenetics, chemogenetics, wearables) that enable causal inference in this area.This Research Topic aligns with United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being, by advancing the neurobiological foundations on which interventions for stress-related and affective disorders can be built. It further supports Sustainable Development Goal 5: Gender equality, as we encourage the inclusion of both sexes in submitted studies. Topic editors: Christopher Ehlen, Dipesh Chaudhury, Tracy Jill Doty, Deborah Suchecki Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/82718/sleep-as-a-regulator-of-stress-and-emotion-neurobiological-mechanisms-of-a-bidirectional-relationship