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Relevance of Network Organization in SCN Clock Function

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Mechanisms of Circadian Systems in Animals and Their Clinical Relevance

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Abstract

The bilateral suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) of the hypothalamus are the loci of a circadian pacemaker that coordinates rhythms throughout the body. The ~10,000 cells of each nucleus are organized into distinct core and shell divisions, each of which is comprised of clusters of various cell types. In dispersed cell preparations, individual SCN neurons express a wide range of circadian periods. In a slice preparation, there is a characteristic peak and trough time of clock gene expression in specific subregions, indicating that the networks into which cells are organized are an important aspect of SCN function. Understanding the relationship of individual cells to that of larger neuronal groupings and to brain circuits in which they participate is a problem of general interest in neuroscience. The SCN is an especially tractable system for such queries as the function of this nucleus is known, and circadian rhythms in activity of individual cells and in the SCN as a whole can each be tracked and associated with the overall behavior and physiology of the intact animal.

This chapter focuses on the cellular and circuit organization of the SCN to understand how the SCN encodes circadian time, the ways in which it is synchronized to the local environment and how it adjusts its activity in the presence of mutations in key regulatory genes. While the clock analogy is useful, it can be extended to better capture aspects of SCN function that are not “clock-like”.

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Acknowledgments

The research from Rae Silver lab reported here was supported by NIH grants NS37919 MH 075045 and NSF grant 21-02-0530-120045 (to R.S.) and postdoctoral fellowship awards from CONACYT 186901 (to E.M.) and CONACYT 186902 (to C.J.P).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Barnard College, New York, NY, 10027, USA

    Elvira Morgado, Claudia Juárez-Portilla & Rae Silver

  2. Facultad de Biología, Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, Mexico

    Elvira Morgado

  3. Centro de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, Mexico

    Claudia Juárez-Portilla

  4. Department of Pathology and Cell Biology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    Ann-Judith Silverman & Rae Silver

  5. Department of Psychology, Columbia University, 1190 Amsterdam Avenue, Room 406 Schermerhorn Hall Mail Code 5501, New York, NY, 10027, USA

    Rae Silver

Authors
  1. Elvira Morgado
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  2. Claudia Juárez-Portilla
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  3. Ann-Judith Silverman
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  4. Rae Silver
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Correspondence to Rae Silver .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Fisiología Celular, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México, México, Distrito Federal, Mexico

    Raúl Aguilar-Roblero

  2. Instituto de Neurobiología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Juriquilla, Querétaro, Mexico

    Mauricio Díaz-Muñoz

  3. Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México, Distrito Federal, Mexico

    Mária Luisa Fanjul-Moles

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Morgado, E., Juárez-Portilla, C., Silverman, AJ., Silver, R. (2015). Relevance of Network Organization in SCN Clock Function. In: Aguilar-Roblero, R., Díaz-Muñoz, M., Fanjul-Moles, M. (eds) Mechanisms of Circadian Systems in Animals and Their Clinical Relevance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08945-4_9

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