Research Hit: How Your Brain Slows You Down When You’re Sick

We all know that feeling when you’ve fallen sick, and you just want to curl up in your bed sheets and sleep the day away. You have little desire to move, and also probably aren’t hungry either.

You may not know, but can probably work it out, that this is actually good for you — it helps recovery. For example, in animals that are forced to eat when sick, mortality increases. So obviously the body is doing something that benefits us — even if it feels rubbish at the time.

But how this behaviour is controlled was a mystery: there could be multiple factors influencing this and multiple communication channels between body and brain. However, a group of researchers at Rockefeller Universityhave now pinpointed