Bob Grant | Apr 1, 2009 | 3 min read
New findings support a controversial hypothesis about the biological role of sleep: Snoozing may be a way for the brain to clear clutter accumulated after a hard day of synapse forming and strengthening. Two __Science__ studies published today suggest that the brains of sleeping __Drosophila__ undergo an overall depression in synaptic strength and number, eliminating some minor neuronal connections while merely weakening stronger ones.Expression of synaptic markers is low aftersleep (left) and h