Circadian Rhytm

Dr. Cavanaugh experiment on the circadian rhythm was the research the interested me. In this project Dr.Cavanaugh mapped out the brain that was associated with the circadian rhythm. The human brain is simply too complex to even attempt to map out as it has 86 billion neurons and 100,000 trillion synapses. The Drosophila brain contains 100,000 neurons with 10 million neurons. This is a lot easier to map out because it is less complex. The only thing that surprised me is how does someone dissect a brain out of a fly? Anyway, one of the purposes of the experiment is to see if constitutive activation or inactivation of output neurons should disrupt behavior changes. After using the GAL4 as a binding domain and able to identify the genes of interest. I don’t exactly recall all the events except that the PI the clock cells were in the PI section, which is equivalent to a hypothalamus for humans. Kurs 58 was also found to be the most illuminated cells. Anyway, Dr. Cavanaugh found that constitutive activation or inactivation does disrupt behavior rhythms.

There is many factors that can disrupt the circadian rhythm and lead to behavioral changes. Washington State University researchers studied the circadian rhythm of mice. The purpose of their experiment was to see if the timing of sleep is essential. The researchers found that timing of the sleep is more effective than how much sleep one gets. These researchers put mice in  a 24 hour cycle and a 20 hour cycle and found that the mice under a 20 hour cycle had a weaker immune response and were more likely to get sick. These researchers were similar to Dr. Cavanaugh and studying the same thing with similar answers. The difference from my understanding is that the Washington State researchers had changes in the external environment and was able to set of the clock differently. Both of these research projects could tell us more about the mysteries of the circadian rhythms and potentially be able to answer more questions about sleeping disorders to be applied in modern medicine.

Work Cited

Karatsoreo, Llia. "The Timing of Sleep Just as Important As quantity." The Timing of Sleep Just as Important as Quantity. Washington State University, n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2015.