Understanding the biological clock

The science of the biological clock has made progress in understanding how it works, and therefore, how to make it work for us. For years, the prevailing theory of out biological timepiece has been that the suprachiasmatic nuclei, or SNC, fire impulses either quickly when we're awake or slowly when we're asleep. Jet lag would be when your body stays on its normal firing schedule even though you are 8 hours off from that normal schedule. The belief was that the entire body responded to the fast or slow pace of the neuron firings. New evidence says that's wrong.

Daniel Forger and Casey Diekman, both of University of Michigan, along with Dr. Mino Belle and Hugh Pigins, both of University of Manchester in England are releasing their very different findings in the October 9 edition of Science. Forger and Deikman developed a mathematical model and the British scientist collected the data using more than 400 mouse SCN cells. The researchers found that when the 'clock' cells and the 'non-clock' cells in the SCN were separated and studied independently that the clock cells stay excited but they don't actually fire. Instead, they fire briefly around dusk and then again briefly around dawn. Rather than the firing being a constant flow of information to be awake or asleep to the rest of the body, they are more like codes that make sure the body is on time.

Theoretically, if we could cause the time of firing to occur on demand, we could reset our bodies easier when it comes to sleep problems. Also, the long range possibilities are treating cancer, Alzheimer's and mood disorders. Perhaps just as importantly, the cooperation of mathematicians here in the US with researchers in England shows that interdisciplinary cooperation can bring amazing insights.