Sleep disorders are increasingly understood as systems-level conditions in which the brain and body reweight sensory evidence from the external world and internal milieu. We systematically reviewed human evidence for sensory and multisensory dysfunction across sleep disorders and experimental sleep loss....
✦ The floor
Discussion
Signed responses from readers of the wire.
No actionable change for audiology practice at this time; findings are preliminary and primarily relevant to researchers studying sensory processing in sleep disorders.
Understanding how sleep disorders systematically disrupt multisensory processing — including auditory and vestibular function — may reshape how audiologists screen and counsel patients with co-occurring sleep and hearing complaints.
- 01Systematic review covered 31 human sensory modalities across multiple sleep disorder categories.
- 02Sleep disruption alters how the brain 'reweights' sensory evidence, not just a single modality.
- 03Auditory and vestibular systems are likely among the affected modalities.
- 04Findings position sleep disorders as systems-level sensory conditions, not isolated deficits.
- 05Results may inform future interdisciplinary protocols linking sleep medicine and audiology.
Sleep disorders cause the brain to reweight sensory evidence across at least 31 human sensory modalities.
studypartially supported- PMID
- 42664585
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.smrv.2026.102363.
- Journal
- Sleep Medicine Reviews
- Publication type
- systematic_review
- Evidence level
- 1a
- Population
- Human participants across studies of various sleep disorders
- Intervention
- Systematic analysis of sensory modality function across sleep disorder populations
Primary outcomes
Characterisation of multisensory dysfunction across 31 sensory modalities in sleep disorders; Assessment of brain sensory reweighting patterns under disrupted sleep