Abstract
The circadian locomotor activity rhythm of the Japanese newt has been thought to be driven by a putative brain oscillator(s) subordinate to the pineal clock. The existence of mutual coupling between the pineal clock and the brain oscillator(s) in vivo was examined. We covered the newt's skull with aluminum foil and simultaneously reversed the light-dark cycle, thereby allowing the pineal organ to be exposed to constant darkness while the rest of the animal was exposed to the reversed light-dark cycle. In control animals, whose heads were covered with transparent plastic, the rhythm of synaptic ribbon number in the pineal photoreceptor cells was entrained to the reversed light-dark cycle. Rhythms from newts whose heads were shielded, however, were similar to those observed in the unoperated newts kept under constant darkness. The locomotor activity rhythms of both head-covered animals and control animals were entrained to the reversed light-dark cycle. These data suggest that extrapineal photoreception can entrain the putative brain oscillator(s), but not the pineal clock. Thus, at least in an aspect of photic entrainment, there seems to be little or no mutual coupling between the pineal clock and the putative brain oscillator(s) in the circadian system of the Japanese newt.
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Abbreviations
- LD:
-
light-dark
- DD:
-
constant darkness
- SCN:
-
suprachiasmatic nucleus
- SR:
-
synaptic ribbon
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Prof. M. Menaker (Virginia University, USA) for kindly reading and criticizing the manuscript. This research was supported by KAKENHI (11640686) from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Japan. The experiments comply with the Principles of animal care, publication No. 86-23, revised 1985 of the National Institute of Health and also with the laws of Japan.
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Chiba, A., Kikuchi, M. & Aoki, K. Dissociation between the circadian rhythm of locomotor activity and the pineal clock in the Japanese newt. J Comp Physiol A 189, 655–659 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-003-0439-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-003-0439-6