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| Jet-lag symptoms arise from temporal mismatch between the internal circadian
clock and external solar time. We know by experience that it takes about one
week to recover from jet lag (i.e., reentrainment) after a long-distance trip. A
group including one of the author reported in [1] that, in mice lacking the
receptors of a certain neurotransmitter (KO mice), circadian rhythms of behavior
and clock gene expression rhythms immediately reentrained to phase-shifted
light-dark (LD) cycles. Still, the internal clock of such mice works normally under
standard conditions. Experiments indicate that oscillation of clock gene
expression in wild type mice significantly weakened after a large phase shift,
whereas that in KO mice is robust. To uncover the mechanism of jet lag
symptoms, we constructed an oscillator network model for the circadian master
clock (the suprachiasmatic nucleus, SCN).We show that weaker coupling results
in a quick response to jet lag.
[1] Y. Yamaguchi, T. Suzuki, Y. Mizoro, H. Kori, K. Okada, Y. Chen, J.M. Fustin,
F. Yamazaki, N. Mizuguchi, J. Zhang, X. Dong, G. Tsujimoto, Y. Okuno, M. Doi,
H. Okamura: Mice Genetically Deficient in Vasopressin V1a and V1b Receptors
Are Resistant to Jet Lag, Science 342, pp. 85-90 (2013) |
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