Evidence from evolutionarily ancient creatures is revealing that sleep is not just for the brain

Sleep deprivation also appears to attack the gut in fruit flies and mice, by leading to a buildup of harmful molecules known as reactive oxygen species, Harvard Medical School biologist Dragana Rogulja and colleagues reported last year in Cell. Somehow, that accumulation leads to early death in both species, the team found. Rogulja suspects the gut, among the first organs to evolve in multicellular animals, was one of the original beneficiaries of sleep, and that “a lot of [sleep’s] additional roles evolved as animals become more complex.”


https://www.science.org/content/art...brainless-creatures-shed-light-why-we-slumber