Research: The "biological clock" is coordinated with the cyclical temperature; By means of heating or cooling it is possible to adapt to the external conditions
Yuval Dror
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Since the invention of the jet plane, humans have struggled with the phenomenon that accompanies crossing time zones: jet lag. Until recently, scientists claimed that in order to overcome the problem, one must be exposed to light, thereby causing the biological clock to adapt to the external conditions. Now a study at the Washington University in St. Louis states that the correct way to overcome the phenomenon is not necessarily to warm up in the sunlight, but to control the temperature that prevails in the brain.
In general, man is a diurnal creature: biologically we are "destined" to be awake during the day and sleep at night. To meet this task, the brain is equipped with a "biological clock" - a mechanism that regulates sleep and wake cycles. The biological clock, known as the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN) is a cluster of nerve cells the size of a pinhead. It is located in the brain in an area called the hypothalamus, a small structure located in the forebrain. The Suprachiasmatic Nucleus is connected to the retina through optic nerves and it transmits the received information through internal hormonal secretions that reach, among other things, the gland The pineal gland, which secretes the hormone melatonin. According to the known, the hormone is secreted under the influence of darkness and is related to the way in which the body regulates its internal rhythm.
Dr. Eric Herzog of the University of Washington decided to test whether only light and darkness affect the biological clock. He removed the suprachiasmatic nucleus from the brains of mice and grew it in a Petri dish.
In an article recently published in the Journal of Neurophysiology, Dr. Herzog writes that the internal temperature of the brain is resistant to external influences and is generally stable.
Herzog found that during the day the temperature in the brain rises and falls by about 1.5 degrees - usually, the temperature at night will be 1.5 degrees less than its peak in the middle of the day - and that this fluctuation is not related to environmental variables such as light and darkness. "Even if you lived in a dark cave, the temperature in the brain would still change during the day," Herzog wrote.
To check if temperature has a direct effect on the biological clock, he reversed the order of cooling and heating: heated at night and cooled during the day. The result was the change of the biological clock. "This shows that the SCN is coordinated with the brain's cyclical temperature. We were able to trick the nucleus by controlling the temperature and making it think the day is over, even though it has just begun."
According to Prof. Peretz Lavi, head of the sleep research laboratory at the Technion, the results are not surprising.
"When you take a tissue and change its environmental temperature, you change the rate at which the cell creates electrical pulses. Therefore, it can be assumed that even when you heat or cool the suprachiasmatic nucleus, you affect its activity and, as a result, the biological clock."
"We found that we can relatively quickly change the rate of the internal clock and move it from one time zone to another," Herzog said. "This is the first time we were able to take control of the biological clock in the Petri dish and dictate to it what time it is." According to him, the implications of the research may be interesting; If it is possible to easily control the internal temperature in the brain, we can overcome flight relatively easily. Herzog said that one of the factors affecting the internal temperature is the drug aspirin, which is already commonly taken to overcome post-flight fatigue.
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