The scientist Christopher Ciarleglio and his team of the Vanderbilt University, Nashville, have reported in “Nature Neuroscience” about their findings concerning “Interactions of the serotonin and circadian systems”.
In their tests, the scientist worked with baby-mice. They assume that the effects on humans are similar. In the investigations, from birth until weaning they simulated the baby-mice different seasons: one group was timed to “summer” with 16 hours light and 8 hours darkness, the other group was timed to “winter” with 8 hours light and 16 hours darkness. During further 28 days, a part of them was held under the same light conditions, another part in reversed ones. In the following investigations as well activity as the brains of the animals were observed.
The month our birth resp. the season we are born in has a lasting effect on our inner clock
The results are highly interesting: the time span from birth to weaning had a lasting effect on the animals, the following light conditions had no further influence. The activation patterns of the brain in which the phases of activity are visible and out of which conclusions regarding the inner clock can be drawn clearly showed that even in darkness the alertness- and activity-phase of “winter mice” considerably was delayed compared to “summer mice”. A clear evidence, that the first time of our life is significantly influencing our inner clock.
A further important discovery pointed out that the group which had more light at the beginning of their lives more easily adapted to the respective length of the day. Here, the “winter group” had much stronger fluctuations. A behavior also known with people who are suffering under Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). By the way: in earlier studies it was discovered that people who are born in the winter months are more often suffering under schizophrenia. It is possible that there also is a connection to the findings of the scientists of this study.
This post is also available in / Diesen Beitrag gibt es auch in: German
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