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Circadian Waveform and Its Significance for Clock Organization and Plasticity

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Biological Timekeeping: Clocks, Rhythms and Behaviour

Abstract

The daily rotation of the earth creates a strong selection pressure for the evolution of endogenous circadian clocks that, at least in mammals, are generally phase shifted slowly and incrementally by light. Because the earth’s axis of rotation is tilted relative to the revolution around the sun, there is an additional selection pressure for clocks to adjust their waveform (i.e., shape of the daily oscillation) to match seasonal variation in daylength. With a focus on rodents, this chapter reviews protocols demonstrating circadian waveform plasticity and its relationship to the functional organization of the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) of the anterior hypothalamus. Manipulation of waveform uncovers additional novel and unanticipated effects on the lability of circadian timing systems.

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Acknowledgments

JAE acknowledges support from NIH grant R01NS091234 and Whitehall Foundation grant 2014-12-65. MRG acknowledges support from NSF grant IBN-0346391, NIH grant NICHD-36460, and ONR grant N00014-13-1-0285.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology and Center for Circadian Biology, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive – 0109, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA

    Michael R. Gorman & Elizabeth M. Harrison

  2. Department of Biomedical Sciences, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA

    Jennifer A. Evans

Authors
  1. Michael R. Gorman
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  2. Elizabeth M. Harrison
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  3. Jennifer A. Evans
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael R. Gorman .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Zoology, University of Delhi, Delhi, India

    Vinod Kumar

Key Questions of Interest and Suggested Readings

Key Questions of Interest and Suggested Readings

  • How do taxonomically diverse organisms adapt to photoperiodic change? [6]

  • How might circadian waveform manipulations be relevant to human shift workers? [30]

  • What are the emergent properties of SCN networks? [12, 14]

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Gorman, M.R., Harrison, E.M., Evans, J.A. (2017). Circadian Waveform and Its Significance for Clock Organization and Plasticity. In: Kumar, V. (eds) Biological Timekeeping: Clocks, Rhythms and Behaviour. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-3688-7_4

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