Bedtime story about a worm

Abstract Sleep is important for our health, and insufficient sleep has detrimental physiological and psychological consequences. Despite its importance, the molecular and neuronal mechanisms linking sleep to all its vital functions are still poorly understood in humans, as they involve highly complex and intertwined molecular signaling pathways. Fortuitously for sleep research, sleep is a conserved behavior across the animal kingdom with conserved control mechanisms. Thus, fundamental principles can be identified in simple model organisms and subsequently translated to humans in more targeted studies. With its small, fully mapped nervous system and an extensive research infrastructure built by its community, the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans has emerged as a powerful model organism for uncovering fundamental principles of sleep regulation. This review summarizes some key contributions of C. elegans sleep research to the molecular and mechanistic understanding of sleep control, highlighting conserved pathways and potential conceptual touchpoints of biomedical relevance for clinical applications aimed at improving human sleep and wellbeing.