You may notice at night, once the sun sets and darkness takes over the
skies, your eyelids may become harder and harder to keep open. Your body, as
well as other animals’, follows a stimuli-induced system of sleep regulation. At
night, your body releases hormones such as melatonin in response to the stimuli
of darkness. Melatonin will bring on that drowsy feeling and lower your body
temperature. But what if your ability to see light and darkness no longer
existed? How would your body know when to release melatonin so that you can
become tired enough to fall asleep?
In a study discussed in a New York Times article, researchers in London
tested the effects of replacing the stimuli of light with vibrations in flies. In
this study, two different experiments were performed to discover how flies’
bodies would react to the replacement of light with vibration. The first
experiment simply removed light and temperature variations and replaced them
with vibrations that would be turned on for 12
Of course the body needs a time to sleep, to rest, to grow, and to
recover. However, as seen from the experiment discussed above, light variations
may not be necessary stimuli to regulate our circadian rhythms. Perhaps it does
not matter what triggers our wake and sleep cycles, as long as it coincides
with the proper amounts of sleep that we need in order to survive and grow. If
the bodies of flies can synch to a new type of stimuli, what is stopping other
species from doing the same? Perhaps
this could come to cure the dreaded jet lag associated with travel or help a
species easily adjust to its new environment when it must migrate for survival.
Posted by: Ashton Brown (1)
This is a cool topic, I have heard about regulating circadian rhythms before but never about research done regarding regulation without light/dark cues. I wonder if there is any other research showing alternative stimuli that animals use to regulate their circadian rhythms in animals that might not be exposed to light and dark everyday.
ReplyDeletePosted by Morgan Matuszko
I agree with Morgan, this was such an interesting topic. I definitely believe that the proper amounts of sleep is the main thing needed to survive and grow. Being a person whos sleep cycle is completely off, I feel that I'm still surviving and growing.
ReplyDeletePosted by Chelcie Claude
I think it is especially important that you get the right amount of sleep at one time as well, which is why circadian rhythms are so important. You could get 8 one hour naps throughout the day, but having a set schedule helps you to get the deep sleep that you need for growth and restoration.
DeletePosted by Ashton Brown
This really is interesting...perhaps we could regulate circadian rhythms so that I do not need to sleep during final exam week? I really liked that you linked it to curing jetlag, I was initially having trouble seeing how it could relate to human needs but you are certainly right. Showing the potential practicality of this research makes it all the more interesting.
ReplyDeletePosted by Steven Yu
The article only hinted at how this could be useful for humans, so I really had to think of ways in which this would be useful. I think it could also be helpful for people who work nights to be able to regulate their sleep schedules or maybe even college kids when they need to change their sleep cycles!
DeletePosted by Ashton Brown
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Steven. I was confused in the beginning of how this related to human life but after reading about the jet lag problems I can see how useful this research could be because lack of sleep in teenagers us a prevalent issue in this day and age so maybe with this study, more researches could be done to improve human living conditions.
ReplyDeleteJefi Varghese
This was a great topic, definitely something I haven't even thought about for the human body. Sleep is so important and it's pretty wild to think about other potential stimuli that can regulate our circadian rhythms.
ReplyDelete-Samuel Ustayev