Lulling septic shock to sleep

A sleep-inducing neuropeptide can also inhibit lethal septic shock, according to Gonzalez-Rey and colleagues on page 563. This natural neuropeptide—called cortistatin—curbed the production of cytokines and inflammatory mediators that trigger organ failure and vascular collapse in mice exposed to lethal doses of bacteria.

Many neuropeptides that regulate activity in the central nervous system (CNS) double as regulators of inflammation. The stress hormone neuropeptide Y, for example, controls both metabolism and heart rate via the CNS and cytokine production by macrophages in the periphery. Cortistatin is no exception—it was originally described as a sleep-promoting hormone produced in response to circadian rhythms, but was recently shown to be produced by activated immune cells.

But the consequences of cortistatin production by immune cells had not been investigated. Gonzalez-Rey and colleagues now show that cortistatin treatment shuts down the synthesis of...