Body Clock Regulated by Internal Body Temperature

UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have revealed that fluctuations in internal body temperature regulate the body's circadian rhythm, the 24-hour cycle that controls metabolism, sleep and other bodily functions. A light-sensitive portion of the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) remains the body's "master clock" that coordinates the daily cycle, but it does so indirectly.

The SCN responds to light entering the eye, and so, is sensitive to cycles of day and night. While light may be the trigger, the UT Southwestern researchers determined that the SCN transforms that information into neural signals that set the body's temperature. These cyclic fluctuations in temperature then set the timing of cells, and ultimately tissues and organs, to be active or inactive, the study showed.

Scientists have long known that body temperature fluctuates in warm-blooded animals throughout the day on a 24-hour, or circadian, rhythm, but the new study shows that temperature actually controls body cycles, said Dr. Joseph Takahashi, chairman of neuroscience at UT Southwestern and senior author of the study.

"Small changes in body temperature can send a powerful signal to the clocks in our bodies," said Dr. Takahashi, an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, as saying.

"It takes only a small change in internal body temperature to synchronize cellular 'clocks' throughout the body," he added.

In the current study, the researchers focused on cultured mouse cells and tissues, and found that genes related to circadian functions were controlled by temperature fluctuations.

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SCN cells were not temperature-sensitive, however. This finding makes sense, Dr. Takahashi said, because if the SCN, as the master control mechanism, responded to temperature cues, a disruptive feedback loop could result, he said.

The study has been published in the issue of Science.

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Source-ANI