Talk:Circadian rhythm

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sshong94.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 17:43, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

article[edit]

http://www.physorg.com/news174228584.html looks interesting and maybe relevant to this article. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 20:12, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Or perhaps better at Suprachiasmatic nuclei. But anything this fresh needs be accepted by more research teams than the first one, to qualify for Wikipedia. - Hordaland (talk) 03:02, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Circadian rhythm and genetics[edit]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKnO6l2GKXE Ignite talk by Adam Claridge Chang about the Pomace fly and circadian rhythm. Notjim (talk)

How proven is that picture anyway?[edit]

I mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Biological_clock_human.PNG

I have my doubts such a picture can be produced scientifically correct, without qualifiers 88.159.72.240 (talk) 14:42, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The file description attributes the information to a source. I believe it is at least approximately correct, and I'm not sure it makes sense to ask for more from a picture of this type. I also feel that the article is probably better for having the picture. Regards, Looie496 (talk) 17:53, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Looie this time :-)
The schedule shown is clearly that of a morning person (I do not have highest productivity at 10 a.m.!). The items/events chosen to illustrate the rhythm could have been other ones. In some cases, the order of the items will not be correct. (Evening people have their highest productivity in the afternoon. Lowest body temperature varies widely individually.)
Such an illustration is just that: an illustration. It can't possibly be absolutely correct for any one person, and the reader will understand that. It presents the general idea very well, and it is attractive. - Hordaland (talk) 07:38, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What does that mean though? “just an illustration“? That it is useless? Then it should not look like it is, and not be shown. — 89.0.49.164 (talk) 21:31, 5 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that it doesn’t even state which dusk and dawn times it is based on, shows you how bad this picture is. Let alone that dusk and dawn take some time too. They can not be correct for any place that's not perfectly on the equator and doesn’t use a clock based on the very local true noon anyway. E.g. for my location, the sun can go down at 22:00 with daylight saving in summer, or at 16:30 PM in winter, and but true noon can be up to 45 minutes off from out official time zone. How do the times in that picture even relate to that reality? — 89.0.49.164 (talk) 21:31, 5 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A source?[edit]

Under Circadian_rhythm#Enforced_longer_cycles it reqiures a citation for people, average, having a slightly longer that 24h circadian rhythm. The following seems to be a valid source, cited in Psychology: Themes and Variations, a first year uni textbook for psych. Anybody with a bit more familiarity could add it.

Czeisler, C.A., Buxton, O.M., & Khalsa, S. (2005). The human circadian timing system and sleep-wake regulation. In M.H. Kryger, T. Roth, & W.C. Dement (Eds.), "Principles and practice of sleep medicine". Philadelphia: Elsevier Saunders.

DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B0-72-160797-7%2F50038-0 70.26.108.98 (talk) 20:57, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion[edit]

I have a suggestion for this page. I would just do it myself, but I am not well-versed in this field and would hate to mess things up. This page is written for scientists only in many places. While I support the use of technical language when it is necessary to use it, I think it's been significantly abused here. Take this for example: "Although circadian rhythms are endogenous, they are adjusted (entrained) to the environment by external cues called zeitgebers, the primary one of which is daylight".

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.10.172.210 (talk) 03:16, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's not intended to be written for scientists only -- the goal is to say things in the simplest terminology that makes the statements fully correct. I think perhaps though we can at least use a more common word than "endogenous". Looie496 (talk) 01:35, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ways to reset circadian rhythm[edit]

What do you guys think about a section on adjusting your circadian rhythm? Most people use light exposure, melatonin supplements, and more recently food exposure.

http://parentingsquad.com/easy-way-to-reset-your-sleep-cycle-stop-eating — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.127.84.200 (talkcontribs)

I think a section on that might be good, if the material is based on reputable sources. Looie496 (talk) 17:13, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merger proposal[edit]

The article on Sleep architecture is not much more than a stub, and I think would be better off if it were merged into this article under the human health section. Sleep architecture seems to refer essentially to the makeup of one's sleep - the time spent in non-REM (NREM) and REM sleep stages, how much total sleep one gets in a 24 hr period, and how sleep is phased throughout that 24 hour period (ie. one long period of sleep, or two shorter ones, or a large number of much shorter periods). These parameters and the concept of bringing them together under the term "sleep architecture" is well within the scope of this article's discussion, and this (relatively minor) merger would benefit wikipedia in my opinion. Also, I noticed that before this article was made,the search term "Sleep architecture" would redirect you to the article "Sleep" into the section Stages of sleep. That might also be an appropriate place to merge "Sleep architecture"; I personally found it rather difficult to decide whether that location is more or less appropriate than this one - I am interested in what others may think. Spiral5800 (talk) 04:26, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sleep architecture is a stub. If it were to be merged anywhere, Sleep would be the logical place, but that article is already 65 kilobytes long. Sleep architecture is a fascinating topic with a short history. The article should rather be built upon to include much of the sleep stage info from the article Sleep.
In any case, Circadian rhythm is not the place for sleep architecture! Sleep architecture is primarily about the sleep stages which are ultradian, not circadian. Sleep is perhaps the most noticable circadian feature in animal life, but it is far from the only one. --Hordaland (talk) 05:55, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I do agree that the argument that the Sleep article might be a better place for this information to be merged into is an argument with some merit. However, I disagree on your point about sleep architecture not being a term for a specific kind of circadian rhythm. "circa-" means "around", and "-dian" is of course "day", and while indeed some people's sleep cycles may tend towards being ultradian, other peoples can also tend to be infradian - a circumstance that is best described as circadian. Therefore, I think that sleep architecture at the very least deserves a mention on this page, if the sleep architecture stub is not merged here. I think, perhaps, that sleep architecture deserves its own section on the article on human sleep, but that does not mean that the "architecture" of human sleep does not deserve some mention in the article on circadian rhythms. Sleep is the most obvious and arguably most profound of circadian rhythms exhibited in human beings. It is hard to find a system in the human body that does not follow a circadian rhythm; everything from blood pressure to cell division has a sinusoidal circadian cycle (in the case of cell division, this has allowed the development of chronotherapy - also known as chronochemotherapy - which is designed to deliver the highest doses of chemotherapeutic drugs when healthy cells are dividing the least and cancer cells, which due to various mutations are generally out of phase with the rest of the body, are dividing the most). Nearly all of the healthy circadian rhythms observed in humans have a relationship to sleep; the body's biological clock is the clock these rhythms are tuned to follow - they are not directly "tuned" to the time of day except insofar as the person in question's sleep/wake cycle is "tuned" to daylight/darkness. I point all of this out to emphasize the extreme importance of sleep cycles in modulating all the body's other circadian rhythms, which is my reasoning for suggesting that sleep architecture be merged into this article - or if not merged, then at least mentioned. Spiral5800 (talk) 17:43, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An even stronger reason for discussing sleep architecture in this article is that there is quite a bit of evidence that the transition to REM sleep is controlled by the circadian clock -- in many people with major depressive disorder, the onset of sleep is delayed but the transition to REM still occurs at roughly the usual time of night. However for a detailed account of sleep architecture I agree that the sleep article is a more appropriate home. Looie496 (talk) 17:08, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This very old proposal seems never to have been agreed - there are sound arguments against, including one at Talk:Sleep architecture, so I suggest we drop it now - I'm boldly removing the tag from the article. Happy to discuss if need be, but no point in leaving tags around indefinitely. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:14, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Why not just have a title that refers to that sleep argument. Have it blank under, and send a link to it. then under it put {main|Sleep architecture}

Sleep Architecture Main Article: Sleep archecture {main|Sleep architecture} Sidelight12 (talk) 12:45, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, good idea. Let's do that now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:24, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I put it under see also instead. I have doubts. Sidelight12 (talk) 13:32, 25 July 2012 (UTC) Let's leave it out, it has to do with phases of sleep rather than time of day, I linked it from see also, on the bottom instead.Sidelight12 (talk) 13:42, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sleeping code on a sleeping topic? Geniale, as the French say. I'd be for waking it up: it has to do with structure of sleep to which CR contributes: and it feels funny putting in a see also without saying why. ;-} Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:00, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I propose that instead we merge ultradian rhythm here. Rather than being stand-alone concepts, ultradian and infradian hardly make sense except in relationhip together with circadian. The ultradian article (and infradian even more so) is presently just a stub anyway. Perhaps we should also talk more generally about the best ways to improve or restructure this encyclopedia's treatment of chronobiology? Cesiumfrog (talk) 03:53, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

? That seems to be a wholly separate question. How does that address the question of what to do with the merger of sleep architecture? Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:28, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Non-issue. Sleep architecture only duplicated content already covered at the sleep article. The topic pertained specifically to the non-circadian periodicity in sleep, so there seemed to be a strong consensus above or at Talk:Sleep architecture that this would be a silly place to merge it - and the only opposing argument I've heard is that the sleep article is long (how is that a valid argument?). I think the horse is dead; the discussion is now several times longer than the stub ever was. How about we draw a line under it and move on to a question that hasn't already been answered? (Like, how can we best fix the high degree of scope-overlap creeping among this page, chronobiology and circadian clock?) Cesiumfrog (talk) 06:41, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Light Ethology navbox - footer or sidebar[edit]

Question at Template talk:Light Ethology#Convert to sidebar? that you might be able to help with, or give feedback/suggestions on. (please reply there) Thanks. —Quiddity (talk) 20:13, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Overtirering?[edit]

It seems a bit odd, but I don't find anything on the page about being overtired? It seems fairly essential, and yets its missing? Unifoe (talk) 23:57, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you mean the influence of the circadian cycle on sleepiness, I agree that the article ought to discuss it a bit more, although it isn't as simple a topic as one might think. Looie496 (talk) 01:52, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Explain why this is faulty[edit]

Early research into circadian rhythms suggested that most people preferred a day closer to 25 hours when isolated from external stimuli like daylight and timekeeping. However, this research was faulty because it failed to shield the participants from artificial light. Although subjects were shielded from time cues (like clocks) and daylight, the researchers were not aware of the phase-delaying effects of indoor electric lights.[28] The subjects were allowed to turn on light when they were awake and to turn it off when they wanted to sleep. Electric light in the evening delayed their circadian phase. These results became well-known.[29]

To me, this sounds contradictory. Circadian rhythm is described as an internal master clock. The article then goes on to say, however, that one's activity pattern can be influenced by the presence of light. This seems to imply that the circadian rhythm, as described, does not actually exist, since activity is driven by light as well, and not the supposed internal master clock. The quoted passage appears to be starting with the conclusion (that a 24hr circadian rhythm exists) and then faults the study for not corroborating it. Working merely from the evidence, and using available light as a control factor, the study seems to show that there is no 24hr internal clock. Shielding subjects from artificial light, as the passage puts it, would invalidate the control variable. If the study had done that, it would set the amount of light available during the day to the same amount assumed by the circadian rhythm theory, and would not prove that the 24hr cycle was driven internally as opposed to being driven by the availability of light. Ham Pastrami (talk) 03:07, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Let me try to explain in a different way. Consider these three conditions: (1) the lights are on all the time; (2) the lights are off all the time; (3) subjects can turn the lights on or off whenever they want to. None of those conditions impose a circadian rhythmicity, but subjects in all of them nevertheless show rhythms of approximately 24 hours. However, each of the conditions gives a slightly different period. Which of them is the truecircadian period? The question really doesn't have an answer. Looie496 (talk) 04:01, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
To say "This seems to imply that the circadian rhythm, as described, does not actually exist" is reading too much into the research. It's quite clear that a circadian rhythm does exist - even if it can be interfered with through the use of natural or artificial light. The quoted paragraph doesn't address what the period of the natural circadian rhythm actually is, it only explains how researchers came to conclude that it was 25 hours. I really don't think this is contradictory. Ben Aveling 11:36, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Malware Link Removal[edit]

--Gary Dee 18:43, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

CITEVAR, MEDRS, and primary sources[edit]

I'm alarmed at the state of this article. Please review WP:MEDRS and Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-30/Dispatches. This is not an uncommon topic; secondary reviews are available. Recent secondary reviews should be used. There is no reason for blog sourcing here.

Per WP:CITEVAR, the earliest cited versions of this article show that the citation format used was the one generated by the Diberri BogHog PMID citation filling template. When I started working here, I found citation formatting all over the place, and made them consistent to the original citation format. Please follow.

Also, there is an outdated list in Further reading that could probably be pruned, and the link farm in See also should be pruned or worked into the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:00, 30 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The extremely poor sourcing in this article makes no sense; PubMed shows dozens of recent secondary reviews, and quite a few with free full-text available. Why are they not used? This article contains numerous strings of primary sources yielding [{WP:OR|original research]] or giving undue weight to certain aspects, when there are gobs of good secondary reviews that could be used. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:30, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
QUESTION: So, a year and a half later, is the sourcing better now? Just asking, AstroU (talk) 09:49, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Request for collaboration: paragraph on align school schedules with adolescents' circadian rhythms and sleep needs[edit]

From the current issue of the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics.

  • "If we more closely align school schedules with adolescents' circadian rhythms and sleep needs, we will have students who are more alert, happier, better prepared to learn, and aren't dependent on caffeine and energy drinks just to stay awake in class."
  • "Most teenagers undergo a biological shift to a later sleep-wake cycle, which can make early school start times particularly challenging. In this study, we looked at whether a relatively modest, temporary delay in school start time would change students' sleep patterns, sleepiness, mood and caffeine use."
  • "Later School Start Time is Associated with Improved Sleep and Daytime Functioning in Adolescents,"

--SvenAERTS (talk) 00:42, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Have you seen Start School Later movement? Hordaland (talk) 05:39, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Under the heading "Origin"[edit]

This is suggested by the maintenance (heritability) of circadian rhythms in fruit flies after several hundred generations in constant laboratory conditions,[13] as well as in creatures in constant darkness in the wild, and by the experimental elimination of behavioural but not physiological circadian rhythms in quail. -This sentence should be made into two sentences. It is too lengthy which can get confusing when reading it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexabadura (talkcontribs) 15:49, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Endocrine Reviews[edit]

Review about circadian metabolism doi:10.1210/er.2015-1007 JFW | T@lk 22:17, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

heart rate changes - citation[edit]

I believe this is a citation for the following sentence: "Other physiological changes that occur according to a circadian rhythm include heart rate" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.203.110.26 (talk) 02:09, 14 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Why does "mesor" redirect here?[edit]

What does it mean? Equinox (talk) 20:52, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

According to the Dictionary of Circadian Physiology, the mesor is "An estimate of central tendency of the distribution of values of an oscillating variable (the average value around which the variable oscillates). The mesor is a circadian rhythm-adjusted mean based on the parameters of a cosine function fitted to the raw data. Note: When a process is known to be rhythmic, and the data points are not equidistant or the sample size is small, the Mesor often provides a more appropriate unbiased estimator of central tendency than does the arithmetic mean of the raw data." We should probably have a short article about that concept rather than a redirect to this article, but I wouldn't be capable of writing one without more research than I feel like doing. Looie496 (talk) 14:03, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

New NEWS today, for future editing[edit]

Caffine at bedtime pushes back the body's circadian clock.

Headline-1: Caffeine at Night Does More Than Keep You Up Late

QUOTE: "SCIENTISTS FIND THAT ESPRESSO 3 HOURS BEFORE BEDTIME DELAYS THE CIRCADIAN CLOCK ... caffeine has another physiological impact on sleep by delaying the body's natural surge in the production of the sleep hormone melatonin, which in turn pushes back the body's circadian clock. "To our surprise, no one had really tested this question," one of the researchers tells NPR. "What we're seeing here now is another way that caffeine impacts our physiology that we didn't know about before in humans." The problem in this case is that the circadian clock is "present in cells throughout our entire body," says the researcher. "It's in your fat cells; it's in your muscle cells." Messing with it appears to play a role in a wide range of health problems, from obesity to cancer. Many studies have recently suggested that bright light at night, especially the blue light emanating from our screens, impedes melatonin production." -- AstroU (talk) 09:44, 18 September 2015 (UTC) -- PS: For future editing.[reply]

Bill Nye for National Science Foundation[edit]

Body's 24 Hour Clock by Bill Nye for National Science Foundation

Suggested file to add to this article. — Cirt (talk) 16:58, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Suggest we do not add it. --Hordaland (talk) 21:22, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It might be helpful to say a word or two about why it shouldn't be added. Looie496 (talk) 10:20, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
They probably believe that the truth of statements is based on if the person has been cancelled or shown virtue. ;) … Yes, certain people seriously “think” like this. — 89.0.49.164 (talk) 21:43, 5 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Non-primary source needed?[edit]

I'm noticing a lot of tags in the Reference section that say, "non-primary source needed." Primary sources are sometimes the only sources available, and there's no rule against them. Instead, they need to be used "with care." I've always understood that to mean that when poking around on Google Scholar, if I find something that seems useful and informative, I'll first check to see if it reflects the mainstream of scholarly opinion. For example, a single research paper is nothing, but if it's been frequently cited that's better. My next question is: has the research been independently corroborated? If so, do the experts in the field take it seriously, or are they just ignoring it? Zyxwv99 (talk) 01:19, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That makes sense, but it is usually easier to see whether something reflects mainstream opinion by looking at how it is covered in authoritative review articles. Using review articles as sources whenever possible makes our articles easier to maintain. Looie496 (talk) 12:33, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Endocrine Reviews[edit]

Impact on sleep doi:10.1210/er.2016-1083 JFW | T@lk 14:22, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Illegible to Common Readers[edit]

Who opens an article with that phrase for an encyclopedia? 173.15.73.108 (talk) 05:59, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, we should probably fix that. PriceDL (talk) 13:03, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A clockwork Wiki: This article was featured in an academic paper on Wikipedia[edit]

Hello, My name is Omer, and I'm a journalist and young researcher based in Israel. Over the past two years, me and Rona Aviram, a clock biologist from the Weizmann Institute of Science, have studied this article and the one for Circadian Rhythms to try to understand how science and Wikipedia interact. What began as an argument between two friends from two different worlds - me from the history and philosophy of science, and Rona from biology - turned into a full on study of how scientific knowledge is collectively created on Wikipedia.

I am super excited to say the paper is now out on the peer-reviewed Journal of Biological Rhythms. In the paper, we trace how certain ideas permeated from academic literature into these articles and also focused on who edited and contributed content. Specifically, we focused on how people like Hordaland who had personal knowledge despite having no official academic training, were able to contribute in way that in the past was impossible.

For the next few weeks that article will be free to download from the SAGE website (you just need to create a SAGE user name, which is free... I hope to put in on some preprint archive once I figure out which version I can legally do this for)

I'm having some technical difficulties uploading the figures, which I would love to share with you, and will try to do so soon

We would love to hear your feedback Omer Benjakob and Rona Avira --Omer Benjakob (talk) 15:38, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your analysis and fascinating insights into the edits and evolution of the Circadian clock and Circadian rhythm articles. I find most interesting is the evidence that you provide that Wikipedia is also influencing the scientific community, even though Wikipedia's target audience is the general public. The WP:Signpost highlight academic studies on Wikipedia, so I think this paper should be highlighted there. Thanks again for providing such an interesting read. Boghog (talk) 17:41, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Nice writeup on your work here![edit]

See

  • Benjakob, O; Aviram, R (June 2018). "A Clockwork Wikipedia: From a Broad Perspective to a Case Study". Journal of biological rhythms. 33 (3): 233–244. doi:10.1177/0748730418768120. PMID 29665713. Open access icon Published April 17, 2018.

I was going to add this to the boxes above but that is built from newspapers or the like. Jytdog (talk) 04:43, 25 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Useless times throughout the article.[edit]

In the article, in many place, times for certain events are noted. Example:

“[…] the daily body temperature minimum occurred at about 04:00 (4 a.m.) for morning types, but at about 06:00 (6 a.m.) for evening types.”

But it is never mentioned in relation to what they were meant.
The actual time of sunrise or sunset isn’t mentioned. The time zone isn’t mentioned. The time of year and latitude aren’t mentioned.
Meaning those times are pretty much useless. They could be off from the true local time (based on the sun) by literal hours.
Most of the time, not even if this was still based on studies using artificial light was mentioned.
Can we fix this?
89.0.49.164 (talk) 21:40, 5 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]