Rhythms Flashcards
What do biological clocks control?
Any single function within our bodies
What are the physiological impacts of clocks?
- Sleep/wake
- Body temp
- Cardiac output
- Memory
- Energy metabolism
- Eating behaviour
- Immune response
- Detoxification
What are the cellular impacts of clocks?
- Cell cycle progression
- DNA damage repair
- Cellular energy metabolism
- Cell detoxification
- Neuronal excitability
What are the possible impacts of clocks when it goes wrong?
Association with disease
- Affective disorders (bipolar and depression)
- Sleep disorders
- Neurodegenerative disease (Alzheimer’s)
- Obesity/metabolic syndrome
- Inflammation (asthma, COPD)
- Cancer
What are examples of modern lifestyles opposing natural rhythms?
- Chronic shift work (around 15mill people in EU)
- Sleep deprivation (phone usage before bed)
- Altered eating habits
- Jet lag
Generally, how do clocks come about?
- The earth spins around the axis every 24 hours
- Every 24 hours, the environement changes
- During the day there is light, temp is higher and the opposite for night
- Every organism in the planet has adapted to this and can adjust behaviour according to this
- There is a strong relation to survival in animals
- Those with damaged biological clocks don’t live long in the wild. they get eaten by predators
What is an exeption of an animal that does not rely on circadian rhythms?
Deep water fish (more than 1km) under the sea
What is an example of a cyanobacteria rhythm?
Synechococcus: gene activity
What is an example of a plant rhythm?
Bean: leaf movement
What is an example of a fungi rhythm?
Neurospora: conidiation
What is an example of an insect rhythm?
Drosophila: eclosion
What is a circadian rhythm?
A rhythm around 20-28 hours
What is an ultradian rhythm?
A rhythm less than 20 hours
Things that happen several times within a day such as EEG and heart-beat
What is an infradian rhythm?
A rhythm more than 28 hours
There are two types:
- Circalunar (monthly- tides and menstrual cycle)
- Circannual (seasonal/annual- bird migration and hibernation)
What are 4 main characteristics of the circadian system?
- It is a self-sustained oscillator
- It is entrained/synchronised by the environment
- Has a period of 24 hours relating to the rest of the clocks in an organism
- Drives rhythmical outputs
What is the main source of entrainment for the circadian system?
Light
What is the pathway of the circadian system?
- Eye receptors
- SCN in the hypothalamus
- Output to other brain areas
- To peripheral clocks and behavioural/physiological rhythms
Where are the ganglion cells located?
Back of the retina
What do ganglion cells detect?
The amount of light in the environment, whether it is light or dark
What type of light are ganglion cells sensitive to?
To blue light
Has implications in modern life because looking at blue light emitters before bed
These cells are sensitive to sending information to the cells saying its day and bright when it is not
What are the rods and cones?
- Classic visual photoreceptors mainly involved with vision
- Can have animals that do not have these (blind)
- However if the persons ganglion cells are still functional, they can still detect the light in the environment and synchronise to it
What is the main pace-maker in humans clocks?
SCN
What is the structure of the SCN?
2 nuclei on either side of the 3rd ventricle and above the optic chiasm (well located to get visual information)
What is the core of the SCN?
Sits above the optic chiasm and recievs photic information about light and the environment
What is the shell of the SCN?
Receives input from the core and creates outputs to the other brain areas
What neuropeptides does the core of the SCN express?
VIP- Vasointestinal polypeptide
GRP- Gastrin-releasing peptide
What neuropeptide does the shell of the SCN release?
AVP- arginine vasopressin
What are the two photic input routes that the SCN can receive information from?
- Retina, along the retinohypothalamic tract via glutamate PACAP
- Retinal to the intergeniculate leaflet (IGL) usig glutamate and then along the IGT (tract) through NPY
What are 3 non-photic inputs to the SCN?
- Median raphe using serotonin to the SCN
- Other hypalamatic reigons such as the DMH or otehr populations
- Circulating factors such as glucose and leptin
What hormone does the pineal gland release?
Melatonin
What is the pineal gland closely controlled by?
The SCN
What is melatonin considered as and why?
- The hormone of sleep
- Is secreted in the evening before we go to bed and the levels decrease before we wake up
- Is a strong marker of sleep
What is the mechanism underlynig the function of the SCN?
- Transcription and translation of the clock genes which have a period of 24 hours
- The way these tick, drives the rhythm of the cells such as firing rate, neuropeptide secretion etc
What did bioluminescence studies show about the presence of clocks in the body?
- Expressed all over the body, not just in the SCN
- The central clock entrains peripheral clocks in cells, tissues and organs
- Such as hormonal cues (glucocorticoids), feeding and temperature
What is an example of an adrenal rhythm governed by the SCN?
Levels of cortisol expression
What is a chronotype?
Out clock dictates individual difference in circadian/sleep profiles
What are the 3 types of chronotype?
- Morning type (lark)
- Indifferent type
- Evening type (owl)
What is the population percentage, waking time and sleeping time of morning type chronotypes?
- Population- 15-20%
- Waking time- 4-6am
- Sleep time- 20-22pm
What is the population percentage, waking time and sleeping time of indifferent type chronotypes?
- Population- 60-70%
- Waking time- 6-8am
- Sleep time- 22-24pm
What is the population percentage, waking time and sleeping time of evening type chronotypes?
- Population- 15-20%
- Waking time- 8-10am
- Sleep time- 24-2am
What 3 things is chronotype dependent on?
- Genetic background
- Age- primary deteminant of sleep timing
- Sex- women sleep more than men and earlier
- Environment- social pressures conceal biological drives in the evening
Which predicts sleep duration, sleep or wake time?
Bedtime
What is social jet lag?
- Week days, people are forced to wake up for work earlier
- Weekends, people wake up later
- Causes chronic sleep loss due to the misalignment of biological and social rhythms
- Linked with health problems
What chronotype is more likely to suffer from social jet lag?
Night owls
What bad habits is social jet lag associated with?
- Smoking
- Increased consumption of stimulants (caffeine)
- Alcohol drinking before bed
- Depressed mood
What happens if a moyse can no longer detect environmental light?
- Will wake up and sleeo in its own period of less than 24 hours and awake slightly earlier everyday
- This is called freerunning
What is human free running cycle?
24.5
What are zeitgebers?
Envorinmental stimuli that cause entrainment to a circadian cycle
What are 4 examples of zeitgebers?
- Light levels (prinicple one)
- Food
- Temperature levels
- Social stimuli
What kind of pattern does a circadian rhythm show on a graph?
Sinusoidal wave
What are 3 circadian rhythm wave characteristics?
- Period
- Amplitude
- Phase
What is the period of a rhythm?
Time/distance between the two peaks or troughs
What is the amplitude of a rhythm?
- Size of the deviation between a trough and a peak
- Big differences in values between trough and peaks incdicate a clear difference between day and night
What rhythm characteristic does age decrease?
Amplitude
What is the phase of a rhythm?
- Timing relative to a fixed point
- Light onset to the start of activity is a phase
- Phase shifts are important in some conditions such as phase advanced and phase delayed sleep
What are the two phase shifts?
Phase advance- going to bed earlier than usual
- Phase delay- going to bed later than usual
Is it easier for humans to adjust to a phase delay or advance?
- Delay
- As we are freerunning at 24.5, so adapt to travelling westwards easier
Outline the feedback loops of the molecular clock genes governing circadian rhythms
- High levels of Bmal1 at the start of the day promotes Bmal1-clock heterodimers
- Bmal1 rmans high at the beginning of the subjective day and low at night
- The Bmal1-clock heterodimers bind to eboc sequences in the promotors cry, per and rev-erba genes to activate the transcription of the beginning of the circadian day
- After transcritpion and translation, the rev-erba protein enters the nucleus to supress the transcription of Bmal1 and cry genes
- As the per proteins such as per2 accumulate in the cytoplasm, they become phosphorylates by CK1 epsilon. The phosphorylated forms of per are unstable and degrade by ubiquitylation
- Late in the subjective day, cey accumulates in the cytoplasm causing stable CK1 epsilon per cry complexes which enter the nucleus at the beginning of the subjective night
- Once in the nucleus, cry1 disrupts the clock Bmal1 associated transcritptional complex- inhibition of cry, per and rev-erba transcription and the repression of Bmal1 transcription
- The Bmal1 clock heterodimer can also inhibit Bmal transcription
- It is not clear whether per and cry must dissociate from the CK1 per cry complex to inhibit the activity of the clock-Bmal1 heterodimer and stimulate Bmal1 transcription in the nucleus
- The interaction of positive and negative feedback loops of circadian genes ensures low levels of cry and per and high levels of Bmal1 at the beginning of a new circadian day
What are the outputs of the SCN?
- Ventral supraventricular zone (vSPZ)
- Dorsal supraventricular zone (dSPZ)
- DMH- dorsal medius of the hypothalamus
What do neurons in the vSPZ do?
Relay information regarding wake and sleep
What do neurons in the dSPZ do?
Relay information regarding temperature
Where are the SCZ pathways integrated?
- In the DMH
- Drives sleep activity, feeding and corticosteroid secretion
What is the DMH the origin of?
Of the projections to the basal forebrain, including the VLPO and LHA
What does the VLPO do?
Regulates sleep cycles and is active during sleep, mostly non-rem and causes the release of GABBA and galanine which inhibit neurons involved in wakefulness and arousal
What activates the VLPO?
Serotonin and adensoine
What does the LHA do?
Controls wakefulness and feeding cycles, these contain orexin and melanin concentrating hormone
Where do orexin and melanin project to?
- LC (NA)
- Raphe (5HT)
- TMV (histamine)
- All involved in promoting arousal
What do amphetamines do?
Wake provoking drigs as activate arousal areas of the brain
What do anti-histamines do?
Can cross the BBB and cause drowsiness by blocking the arousing influence of the histamine system
What do barbiturates, benzodiazepines and ethanol do?
- Barbiturates are the largest class of sleep promoting drugs
- They act on GABBAA receptors, at low doses, act on VLPO to silence the arousal system
- At higher doses they can silence much of the CNS
What does caffeine do?
- VLPO is activated by sleep inducing neurotransmitter adenosine
- Caffeine acts through this and inhibits activation of the VLPO, promoting wakefulness
What genes are advance sleep phase phenotype linked to?
- Cry1
- Per1 and 2
- Per 3
- CK1 delta, CK1 epsilon
What are the two common versions that exist in human populations?
- A long and a short allele region of the repeat region
- The long is associated with morning preference
- The short is with evening preference
What genes are delayed sleep phase phenotype linked to?
- Per 3
- Clock (also hypersomnia)
What phenotype is Bmal1 polymorphisms linked to?
Fragmented sleep
What phenotype is OPN4/melanopsin polymorphisms linked to?
Seasonal affective disorder
What does OPN4 do?
Encodes for the photopigment melanopsin in retinal ganglion cells