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Adelaide
11-19-2012, 12:19 AM
Gene Distinguishes Early Birds from Night Owls and Helps Predict Time of Death

ScienceDaily (Nov. 16, 2012) — Many of the body's processes follow a natural daily rhythm or so-called circadian clock. There are certain times of the day when a person is most alert, when blood pressure is highest, and when the heart is most efficient. Several rare gene mutations have been found that can adjust this clock in humans, responsible for entire families in which people wake up at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. and cannot stay up much after 8 at night. Now new research has, for the first time, identified a common gene variant that affects virtually the entire population, and which is responsible for up to an hour a day of your tendency to be an early riser or night owl.

...

They soon discovered a single nucleotide near a gene called "Period 1" that varied between two groups that differed in their wake-sleep behavior. At this particular site in the genome, 60 percent of individuals have the nucleotide base termed adenine (A) and 40 percent have the nucleotide base termed guanine (G). Because we have two sets of chromosomes, in any given individual, there's about a 36 percent chance of having two As, a 16 percent chance of having two Gs, and a 48 percent chance of having a mixture of A and G at this site.

"This particular genotype affects the sleep-wake pattern of virtually everyone walking around, and it is a fairly profound effect so that the people who have the A-A genotype wake up about an hour earlier than the people who have the G-G genotype, and the A-Gs wake up almost exactly in the middle," explains Saper, who is also the James Jackson Putnam Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at Harvard Medical School. Also, expression of the Period 1 gene was lower in the brains and white blood cells of people with the G-G genotype than in people with the A-A genotype, but only in the daytime, which is when the gene is normally expressed.


Gene Distinguishes Early Birds from Night Owls and Helps Predict Time of Death - Science Daily (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121116124551.htm)

I know that scientists and physicians have long suspected the genetic link, but didn't quite know the specifics.

The coolest part of this research? It can predict what time of day you're most likely to die... so neat.

Adelaide
12-02-2012, 05:59 AM
On a slightly related note:


A new study suggests that extending nightly sleep in mildly sleepy, healthy adults increases daytime alertness and reduces pain sensitivity.

Results show that the extended sleep group slept 1.8 hours more per night than the habitual sleep group. This nightly increase in sleep time during the four experimental nights was correlated with increased daytime alertness, which was associated with less pain sensitivity.

In the extended sleep group, the length of time before participants removed their finger from a radiant heat source increased by 25 percent, reflecting a reduction in pain sensitivity. The authors report that the magnitude of this increase in finger withdrawal latency is greater than the effect found in a previous study of 60 mg of codeine.



Extended Sleep Reduces Pain Sensitivity (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121201085915.htm)

corrocamino
12-02-2012, 06:59 AM
I habitually (congenitally?) get up around 4:00 AM. I'm now jotting down some dates to make a rough calculation about my marriage-withdrawal sensitivity (I wonder what the median is).... ;>)

Adelaide
12-03-2012, 12:57 AM
I habitually (congenitally?) get up around 4:00 AM. I'm now jotting down some dates to make a rough calculation about my marriage-withdrawal sensitivity (I wonder what the median is).... ;>)

Getting up at 04:00 actually probably indicates you have some form of advanced sleep phase syndrome and/or that your circadian rhythm is slightly off balance. If it's not negatively effecting you then it's not a big deal. I have the opposite problem, myself.

corrocamino
12-03-2012, 07:08 AM
Getting up at 04:00 actually probably indicates you have some form of advanced sleep phase syndrome and/or that your circadian rhythm is slightly off balance. If it's not negatively effecting you then it's not a big deal. I have the opposite problem, myself.

According to my genealogist brother, I'm not Circadian. Our earliest traceable patrilineal ancestor dwelt around Nottingham (Angleterre) in the mid-sixteenth century; his only child, a son, came to America and married a Dutch girl in New Amsterdam, after that there were infusions of other northern European strains. If I'm not mistaken, the Circadians are the only "white" people allowed into Mecca; Burton posed as one, I think. [grin]

waltky
10-02-2017, 03:05 PM
Uncle Ferd gets surly if ya wake him when he's nappin'...
http://www.politicalwrinkles.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif
Three Americans win 2017 Nobel Prize in medicine for research on circadian clocks
October 2, 2017 - Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young won the 2017 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine on Monday for their research into what controls circadian rhythms — the internal clock that governs how humans, animals and plants behave throughout the day and night.


Thanks in part to their discoveries, scientists and doctors now know these day-and-night cycles keep creatures alive by regulating our alertness, sleep patterns, blood pressure, hormones, body temperature and when we eat.

Who are the winners: All three recipients are Americans who made their Nobel prize-winning discoveries by working with fruit flies, a popular animal model for neurobiology and genetics experiments. Jeffrey C. Hall, 72, is currently a geneticist at the University of Maine, but conducted his groundbreaking work with biologist Michael Rosbash, 73, at Brandeis University near Boston. In the 1980s, the pair collaborated with geneticist Michael W. Young, 68, of Rockefeller University in New York to characterize what are known as the “period” and “timeless” genes.

http://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/newshour/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/physiology_winners_02Oct2017-1-335x205.jpg
Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young won the 2017 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine on Monday for their research into what controls circadian rhythms.


A decade earlier, geneticists Seymour Benzer and Ronald Konopka had discovered that mutations of the period gene disrupted the cycle of regular movements and egg hatching that fruit flies normally go through during a 24-hour period. Some flies went through their activities on shortened, nine-hour loops, while the schedule for others lengthened to 28 hours. Hall, Rosbash and Young wound up pinpointing the location of the period and timeless genes within the fruit fly genome and working out what their proteins do. (Reminder: Genes located on our DNA make proteins. Proteins make up our cells, our bodies and everything we do).

What they did: Scientists had known about circadian rhythms since 1729, when astronomer Jean Jacques d’Ortous de Mairan placed a mimosa plant into a dark room and noticed that the plant’s leaves still opened and closed at the same times every day. Through a series of breakthroughs, Hall, Rosbash and Young showed these internal clocks are self-regulated. In the morning, sunlight switches on the “period” gene, which begins to produce its protein. This protein accumulates in the cytoplasm, the chunky space in our cells that surrounds the nucleus where our DNA and the period gene are housed. “I just thought it was a terrific problem,” Michael W. Young said about why he decided to take on the mystery of circadian rhythms.

MORE (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/three-americans-win-2017-nobel-prize-medicine-research-circadian-clocks/)

Perianne
10-02-2017, 04:20 PM
waltky

This uncle Ferd guy....lol.

resister
10-02-2017, 04:21 PM
I often stay up until 3 and sleep until 10 or so.

Trumpster
10-10-2017, 03:57 PM
Especially when it comes to sleep, I don't let my genes control me; I control my genes. :thumbsup20: