Insufficient sleep can cause much more than tiredness and grouchiness in adolescents. As well as being important for their health, adolescents also need to get enough sleep to feel satisfied with their lives, according to a study by Dr Eun Jin Jung, from the Centre for Regional and Industrial HRD Research, Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training, Sejong, Republic of Korea.

As the practice of psychotherapy increasingly embraces the spiritual dimensions of the human experience, therapists are investigating new ways to weave faith and meaning into healing. Dr Suzanne Coyle, a licensed pastoral counsellor and family therapist, explores the role of spirituality in psychotherapy and how this intersection can support the journey of healing. Her work provides practitioners with the tools and knowledge to integrate spirituality meaningfully into clinical practice.

At University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, recent work by Professor Bo Song and colleagues suggests that light may play an unexpected role in the way our nerves use and transmit energy. Their research explores how mid-infrared photons, tiny packets of light released by chemical reactions inside nerve cells, might interact with the fatty myelin sheath tasked to insulate axons. Together, the studies propose a new view of biological communication —one that combines chemistry, physics, and quantum mechanics— to explain how the nervous system could use light to enhance energy efficiency and information transfer.

The brain’s ability to manage stress and guide behaviour, including making decisions or interacting with others, relies in part on an area called the medial prefrontal cortex. But exactly how this region controls the body’s internal responses has remained unclear. New research on mice led by Prof Hong-Wei Dong and his team at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) sheds light on a little-studied part of the brain that may play a key role.
The work reveals a complex network, unconvering a previously undefined “primary visceromotor cortex” in the mouse brain, that helps link thoughts, feelings, and physical state. This discovery could reshape our understanding of how the brain controls stress, emotion, and internal bodily functions, and offer new insights into human mental health disorders.