BODY LANGUAGE: Chronobiology.

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New Bio/Circadian Rhythm Research

Circadian clock system plays vital roles in the regulation of physiological processes, including cell cycle progression, cytokine release, hormone secretion, sleep and wakefulness, immune regulation, etc. Multiple systemic diseases are proven to be closely associated with circadian rhythm disorders, so chronobiology research is becoming a focal point in biological and medical fields at present. With the development of chronobiology in these years, external cues that can be used as synchronizers to reset the circadian oscillators of animals or cells have been gradually discovered. From time-serial collection to real-time monitoring through luciferase reporter genes and fluorescent proteins, the methods to observe biological rhythms are rapidly advancing and becoming more diverse. In addition, researchers have also established a number of circadian clock-related databases to facilitate access to previous research results. Through the combination of various in vivo and in vitro experiments, the mechanisms underlying circadian oscillations are constantly being elucidated, and the complicated connections between circadian rhythm disorders and various diseases are also being identified. Illuminating the crosstalk between circadian rhythm and human diseases can help us better clarify the pathogenesis of circadian-related diseases, which provides new strategies and ideas for disease prevention and treatment.

THE PHILOSOPHY of Time.

The Fluidity of Time

By Joe Dawson + Scott Sleek

The Internal Timekeeper

“For decades, scientists conceptualized time perception according to theoretical models that essentially posited a biological stopwatch in the brain, which slowed and accelerated in line with attention and arousal. More recently, researchers have been searching for the precise brain areas responsible for internal timekeeping. Using newer technologies such as functional MRI, scientists such as APS Fellow Warren H. Meck at Duke University have concluded that a large network of neural areas, not just a single brain structure, underlies time processing. And neuroscientists in Europe, including Nobel laureate Edvard Moser, have been using optogenetics (a biological technique used to control and monitor individual neurons) with mice to identify specific brain regions that affect our subjective timekeeping.

In the midst of the neuroscientific focus on time perception, scientists continue to recognize the integral role that happiness, sadness, fear, and other emotions play in the way we feel the passing of seconds and minutes. APS James McKeen Cattell Fellow Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi of Claremont Graduate University first identified the way enjoyable experiences can affect our focus on time. Csikszentmihalyi famously coined the term “flow” to describe the experience of being so happily immersed in an activity — be it athletics, work, or a creative project — that all distractions are shut out. A key feature of the flow experience is a distorted sense of time — typically a feeling that time has passed faster than usual.

Subsequent research has identified the sheer pursuit of rewards, from experiences to material goods, as an ingredient for temporal illusions. These studies often incorporate the oddball effect — a phenomenon in which encountering novel stimuli inflates perceived durations. Dartmouth University psychological scientist Peter Ulric Tse and colleagues demonstrated this effect in 2004 when they showed research participants repetitive images flashing on a computer screen, followed by a single novel image. Although all the images stayed on the screen for the same amount of time, participants reported that the oddball image seemed to last longer than the others.

Psychological scientists in the Netherlands recently demonstrated the influence of potential rewards tied to the oddball effect. In a series of lab experiments, Michel Failing and Jan Theeuwes of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam showed participants a series of images, one of which was different from the rest. The participants indicated whether the oddball image stayed on screen for a longer or shorter period than the rest of the images. When they could earn a reward for a correct answer in the form of a large number of points, they perceived the oddball images as prolonged compared with oddballs that earned them no points.”