Chronobiology and Chronotherapeutics: Resetting the Biologic Clock

Chronobiology and chronotherapeutics.

Chronobiology and chronotherapeutics. Applications to cardiovascular medicine.

The concept of homeostasis, ie, constancy of the milieu interne, has dominated the teaching, research, and practice of medicine during the 20th century. According to this theory, biologic functions and processes are maintained in relative constancy over time. The emerging concepts of chronobiology, the scientific discipline of biologic rhythm study, and the findings from research in this field ...

Resetting the suprachiasmatic nucleus clock.

Recent research on the cellular basis of circadian rhythmicity has stressed the importance of clock genes for the maintenance of normal rhythmicity. There have been tremendous advances in our understanding of the inter-relationships of the various genes known to generate the rhythms. We know relatively little, however, about the way animals maintain their rhythmicity under normal seasonally cha...

Resetting the Clock Dexras1 Defines a Path

The signaling pathways by which light and activity shift the circadian clock are not well understood. In this issue of Neuron, Cheng et al. analyze mice lacking Dexras1 (a Ras family GTPase protein) and demonstrate an important role for G(i/o) signaling mediating both photic and nonphotic phase shifts of the circadian clock.

Rapid resetting of the mammalian circadian clock.

The suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) contain the principal circadian clock governing overt daily rhythms of physiology and behavior. The endogenous circadian cycle is entrained to the light/dark via direct glutamatergic retinal afferents to the SCN. To understand the molecular basis of entrainment, it is first necessary to define how rapidly the clock is reset by a light pulse. We used a two-pulse ...