Relationship between the external stimuli and the internal body clock

 

                  Vesna Mikuta-Martinisa and Ljubica Matijević- Mašićb

                     aRuđer Bošković Institute, Theoretical Physics Division, Zagreb, Croatia

               vmikuta@irb.hr

                     bClinical Hospital Dubrava, Department of Clinical Immunology and 

               Reumatology, Zagreb, Croatia

                ljmasic@kbd.hr

 

 

Biosystems have  tendency to repeat their activities in time.These cycles are very important in many essential biological processes that occur in a "scheduled " fashion ( eating, sleeping, cellular regeneration, ..).

Chronobiology is the branch of science that examines these time – related phenomena in living organisms and quantifies  mechanisms of biological time structure ( circadian, circavital and circannual rhythm ).

            The most important rhythm is the " circadian " rhythm which refers to the (roughly) 24-hour daily biological cycle.

           In this research we have studied the influence of the external oscillating phenomena on the circadian rhythm in humans  ( the " internal body clock "). Some very important oscillating parameters like immunoglobulin ( IgA, IgG and IgM ), the daily variation of hormons ( cortisol ), the blood pressure and the heart frequency are examined.

            The study was performed  on  the group of  22 young men in the age between 20 and 23 and  experimental results were analysed using ANalysis Of  VAriance (  ANOVA ) and some other tests.

            Our analysis confirmed that changes in the oscillating character of above parameters parameters are strongly correlated  with the external stimuli.

 

 

References

1.    J.E. Pauly, American Journal of Anatomy 168 ( 1983 ) 365 – 388.

2.    U. Schibler, J.A. Ripperger, and S.A. Brown, Science 293 ( 2001 ) 437 – 438.

3.    V. Mikuta-Martinis, and Lj. Matijević-Mašić, in:  I. Lazzarini  ( Ed.),  INSC 2006, SCTPLS, Pewaukee, 2006, pp. 53-54.