IGERT Story
Study: Metabolism in the brain fluctuates with circadian rhythm
Description
Cell and developmental biology professor and Illinois IGERT CMMB PI, Martha Gillette, and her colleagues at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign discovered that metabolism influences time-keeping in the brain.
The rhythm of life is driven by the cycles of day and night, and most organisms carry in their cells a common, (roughly) 24-hour beat. In animals, this rhythm emerges from a tiny brain structure called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in the hypothalamus. Take it out of the brain and keep it alive in a lab dish and this “brain clock” will keep on ticking, ramping up or gearing down production of certain proteins at specific times of the day, day after day.
A new study reveals that the brain clock itself is driven, in part, by metabolism, the production and flow of chemical energy in cells. The researchers focused primarily on a phenomenon known as “redox” in tissues of the SCN from the brains of rats and mice. Full story >>
