Comment by kwoff

"This also strongly suggests that sleep and hunger are both tied to mitochondrial function and energy balance (the latter was already pretty clear!), and that aerobic organisms are constantly adjusting for both fueling their mitochondria and giving them (especially the ones in the central nervous system) some down time for repair and recovery. As the authors say, rather eloquently, “electrons flow through the respiratory chains of the respective feedback controllers like sand in the hourglass that determines when balance must be restored”. There could well be many other functions that have since joined in with the sleep cycle (such as memory consolidation), but the authors hypothesize that mitochondrial function is the process that underlies all of them. If you need oxygen, then you need sleep!"

yawn :) I was wondering if sleep and hunger are tied to mitochondrial function, then wouldn't breathing be affected? If you're hungry, you're not getting enough glucose for respiration. If you're suffocating....