Normal circadian rhythms are synchronized to a regular 24 hr environmental light/dark cycle. Both the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) and melatonin are essential for this adaptation. Melatonin exerts its chronophysiological action in part by acting through specific receptors (MT1, MT2) which have been identified in the plasma membrane of SCN as well as in several neural and non-neural tissues. Bo...

S116 is a common complaint with a number of Psychiatric disorders e.g., depression, anxiety, and withdrawal from the substances that depress cerebral functioning. In addition, we now have evidence that link the depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia with the disordered circadian rhythms and many of these patients show delayed sleep wake phase cycle.Similarly, antidepressants are known t...

Myotonic dystrophy is the most common type of muscular dystrophy in adults and is characterized by progressive myopathy, myotonia, and multiorgan involvement. Two genetically distinct entities have been identified, myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1 or Steinert's Disease) and myotonic dystrophy type 2 (DM2). Myotonic dystrophies are strongly associated with sleep dysfunction. Sleep disturbances in ...

Recent work in experimental neurophysiology has identified distinct neuronal populations in the rodent brain stem and hypothalamus that selectively promote wake and sleep. Mutual inhibition between these cell groups has suggested the conceptual model of a sleep-wake switch that controls transitions between wake and sleep while minimizing time spent in intermediate states. By combining wake- and...

Recent experimental studies investigating the neuronal regulation of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep have identified mutually inhibitory synaptic projections among REM sleep-promoting (REM-on) and REM sleep-inhibiting (REM-off) neuronal populations that act to maintain the REM sleep state and control its onset and offset. The control mechanism of mutually inhibitory synaptic interactions mirrors...

Smart home technologies provide numerous benefits for providing healthcare to individuals in a non-invasive manner. Our goal of this research is to use smart home technology to assistance people recovering from injuries or coping with disabilities to live independently. In this paper, we propose an algorithmic method, Behavior Forecasting (BF), to model and forecast both the wake and sleep beha...

Melatonin is a physiological hormone involved in sleep timing and is currently used exogenously in the treatment of primary and secondary sleep disorders with empirical evidence of efficacy, but very little evidence from randomised, controlled studies. The aim of this meta-analysis was to assess the evidence base for the therapeutic effects of exogenous melatonin in treating primary sleep disor...

An observation of sleep improvement with vitamin D supplementation led to a 2 year uncontrolled trial of vitamin D supplementation in 1500 patients with neurologic complaints who also had evidence of abnormal sleep. Most patients had improvement in neurologic symptoms and sleep but only through maintaining a narrow range of 25(OH) vitamin D3 blood levels of 60-80 ng/ml. Comparisons of brain reg...

How the circadian clock regulates the timing of sleep is poorly understood. Here, we identify a Drosophila mutant, wide awake (wake), that exhibits a marked delay in sleep onset at dusk. Loss of WAKE in a set of arousal-promoting clock neurons, the large ventrolateral neurons (l-LNvs), impairs sleep onset. WAKE levels cycle, peaking near dusk, and the expression of WAKE in l-LNvs is Clock depen...

We know that one in seven Americans have a chronic sleep/wake disorder, and although similar data are not available for other Western countries the figures are probably similar. In developing countries factors such as poverty have a profound influence on sleep. In India, for example, it is estimated that one third ofthe population goes to sleep where they are standing when it is time to sleep. ...