CLOCK and brain disorder: Andreadou et al. (2023) discovered that IL-12 could mitigate neuroinflammation and has direct neuroprotective and neurotrophic effects on neurons. IL-12 is expressed in mouse and human neural ectoderm and can prevent early neurodegenerative changes. Neurons can release neurotrophic factors to counteract central nervous system damage in various brain diseases (Jin et al., 2005). Chronic sleep deprivation can lead to abnormal expression of clock genes (Niu et al., 2022), disrupting the body’s circadian rhythm (Franken and Dijk, 2009).