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Title: Research results Post by marty on Jan 14th, 2003, 8:58am Hi y'all Svenn sent me a newpaper article from Sweden and asked me to translate it. It is very interesting since it deal with the internal body clock. January 11, 2003 Translated from a Swedish Newspaper (Dagens Nyheter) Newly discovered cell controls internal body clock. Researchers have discovered that there is a previously unknown system in the brain that controls the internal body clock. This system includes sensatory cells in the eye that don’t have anything to do with vision. This discovery explains why people need daylight, or at least strong light, for the internal clock to function. This discovery can, in time, lead to new treatments for sleeping disorders, jet lag, morning tiredness and seasonal depressions. British and American researchers disclose the final proof for the newly discovered system in the latest issue of Science Magazine. The puzzle has been put together during the last two years. It started by American researchers finding a light sensitive substance in the skin of frogs. Soon after this finding, it was discovered that the same substance was present in the eye of both mice and humans. The substance that was named melanopsin, because it is similar to opsin that also can be found in the sensatory cells in the eye. About one year ago, other researchers showed that melanopsin in animals are in-cased in special sensatory cells. These cells, 0.01 % of the cells in the eye, explain why they eluded researchers for so long. This discovery explains why blind persons, who do not have certain sensatory cells in the eye, still have a functioning internal body clock that reacts to daylight, with pupils that constrict. From the newly discovered sensatory cells, the nerves goes to a center in the brain, located directly under the location where the nerves from the eyes cross. This location is believed to control the internal body clock of animals, for instance the sleep-hormone melatonin and the stress-hormone korisol, body temperature, heart rate, intestines and oxygen-consumption. To finally prove the new light-system function, the British / American research group “made” gene-altered mice without melanopsin. These mice reacted much less than non-altered mice to strong light. Their pupils did not constrict as much when the researchers directed strong light at them and they had a much harder time to change the daily rhythm when the researchers changed there days to nights. At a low light, there was no difference noted as to mice that had melanopsin and the ones that did not have it. - Our results show that melanopsin is very important in registering strong light. This is important, because we believe that the newly discovered light-system is there to tell the body if it is daytime or not. Daytime always-mean strong light, according to Russel Foster of the Imperial College in London and who is also one of the researchers involved in this study. Two percent of all men and 0,03 percent of all women are color-blind, because they have a dysfunction in a certain gene. Researchers believe that certain people can very well have a similar dysfunction and be “melanopsin – blind”. If that were the case, they would have a hard time synchronizing their internal body clock with the sun setting and rising. Written by: Karin Bojs, Karin.bojs@dn.se |
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Title: Re: Research results Post by Svenn on Jan 14th, 2003, 11:19am The Research is about light-treatment for headache among other things. Svenn |
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Title: Re: Research results Post by firebrix on Jan 15th, 2003, 2:37pm INTERESTING............. firebrix |
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