Academic literature on the topic 'Rest-activity circadian rhythms: daily activity level'

Background Understanding the social mechanisms of the circadian rhythms of activity represents a major issue in better managing the mechanisms of age-related diseases occurring over time in the elderly population. The automated analysis of call detail records (CDRs) provided by modern phone technologies can help meet such an objective. At this stage, however, whether and how the circadian rhythms of telephone call activity can be automatically and properly modeled in the elderly population remains to be established. Objective Our goal for this study is to address whether and how the circadian rhythms of social activity observed through telephone calls could be automatically modeled in older adults. Methods We analyzed a 12-month data set of outgoing telephone CDRs of 26 adults older than 65 years of age. We designed a statistical learning modeling approach adapted for exploratory analysis. First, Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) were calculated to automatically model each participant’s circadian rhythm of telephone call activity. Second, k-means clustering was used for grouping participants into distinct groups depending on the characteristics of their personal GMMs. Results The results showed the existence of specific structures of telephone call activity in the daily social activity of older adults. At the individual level, GMMs allowed the identification of personal habits, such as morningness-eveningness for making calls. At the population level, k-means clustering allowed the structuring of these individual habits into specific morningness or eveningness clusters. Conclusions These findings support the potential of phone technologies and statistical learning approaches to automatically provide personalized and precise information on the social rhythms of telephone call activity of older individuals. Futures studies could integrate such digital insights with other sources of data to complete assessments of the circadian rhythms of activity in elderly populations.

Background Understanding the social mechanisms of the circadian rhythms of activity represents a major issue in better managing the mechanisms of age-related diseases occurring over time in the elderly population. The automated analysis of call detail records (CDRs) provided by modern phone technologies can help meet such an objective. At this stage, however, whether and how the circadian rhythms of telephone call activity can be automatically and properly modeled in the elderly population remains to be established. Objective Our goal for this study is to address whether and how the circadian rhythms of social activity observed through telephone calls could be automatically modeled in older adults. Methods We analyzed a 12-month data set of outgoing telephone CDRs of 26 adults older than 65 years of age. We designed a statistical learning modeling approach adapted for exploratory analysis. First, Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) were calculated to automatically model each participant’s circadian rhythm of telephone call activity. Second, k-means clustering was used for grouping participants into distinct groups depending on the characteristics of their personal GMMs. Results The results showed the existence of specific structures of telephone call activity in the daily social activity of older adults. At the individual level, GMMs allowed the identification of personal habits, such as morningness-eveningness for making calls. At the population level, k-means clustering allowed the structuring of these individual habits into specific morningness or eveningness clusters. Conclusions These findings support the potential of phone technologies and statistical learning approaches to automatically provide personalized and precise information on the social rhythms of telephone call activity of older individuals. Futures studies could integrate such digital insights with other sources of data to complete assessments of the circadian rhythms of activity in elderly populations.

SUMMARY Recent studies have demonstrated that the peripheral tissues of vertebrates and invertebrates contain circadian clocks; however, little is known about their functions and the rhythmic outputs that they generate. To understand clock-controlled rhythms at the cellular level, we investigated a circadian clock located in the reproductive system of a male moth (the cotton leaf worm Spodoptera littoralis) that is essential for the production of fertile spermatozoa. Previous work has demonstrated that spermatozoa are released from the testes in a daily rhythm and are periodically stored in the upper vas deferens (UVD). In this paper, we demonstrate a circadian rhythm in pH in the lumen of the UVD, with acidification occurring during accumulation of spermatozoa in the lumen. The daily rhythm in pH correlates with a rhythmic increase in the expression of a proton pump, the vacuolar H+-ATPase (V-ATPase), in the apical portion of the UVD epithelium. Rhythms in pH and V-ATPase persist in light/dark cycles and constant darkness, but are abolished in constant light, a condition that disrupts clock function and renders spermatozoa infertile. Treatment with colchicine impairs the migration of V-ATPase-positive vesicles to the apical cell membrane and abates the acidification of the UVD lumen. Bafilomycin, a selective inhibitor of V-ATPase activity, also prevents the decline in luminal pH. We conclude that the circadian clock generates a rhythm of luminal acidification by regulating the levels and subcellular distribution of V-ATPase in the UVD epithelium. Our data provide the first evidence for circadian control of V-ATPase, the fundamental enzyme that provides the driving force for numerous secondary transport processes. They also demonstrate how circadian rhythms displayed by individual cells contribute to the synchrony of physiological processes at the organ level.

Repeatable between-individual differences in the behavioural manifestation of underlying circadian rhythms determine chronotypes in humans and terrestrial animals. Here, we have repeatedly measured three circadian behaviours, awakening time, rest onset and rest duration, in the free-ranging pearly razorfish, Xyrithchys novacula , facilitated by acoustic tracking technology and hidden Markov models. In addition, daily travelled distance, a standard measure of daily activity as fish personality trait, was repeatedly assessed using a State-Space Model. We have decomposed the variance of these four behavioural traits using linear mixed models and estimated repeatability scores ( R ) while controlling for environmental co-variates: year of experimentation, spatial location of the activity, fish size and gender and their interactions. Between- and within-individual variance decomposition revealed significant R s in all traits suggesting high predictability of individual circadian behavioural variation and the existence of chronotypes. The decomposition of the correlations among chronotypes and the personality trait studied here into between- and within-individual correlations did not reveal any significant correlation at between-individual level. We therefore propose circadian behavioural variation as an independent axis of the fish personality, and the study of chronotypes and their consequences as a novel dimension in understanding within-species fish behavioural diversity.

The suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) serve as the principal circadian pacemakers that coordinate daily cycles of behavior and physiology for mammals. A network of transcriptional and translational feedback loops underlies the operating molecular mechanism for circadian oscillation within the SCN neurons. It remains unclear how timing information is transmitted from SCN neurons to eventually evoke circadian rhythms. Intercellular communication between the SCN and its target neurons is critical for the generation of coherent circadian rhythms. At the molecular level, neuropeptides encoded by clock-controlled genes have been indicated as important output mediators. Arginine vasopressin (AVP) is the product of one such clock-controlled gene. Previous studies have demonstrated a circadian rhythm of AVP levels in the cerebrospinal fluid and the SCN. The physiological effects of AVP are mediated by three types of AVP receptors, designated as V1a, V1b, and V2. In this study, we report that V1a mRNA levels displayed a circadian rhythm in the SCN, peaking during night hours. The circadian rhythmicity of locomotor activities was significantly reduced in V1a-deficient ( V1a−/−) mice (50–75% reduction in the power of fast Fourier transformation). However, the light masking and light-induced phase shift effects are intact in V1a−/− mice. Whereas the expression of clock core genes was unaltered, the circadian amplitude of prokineticin 2 ( PK2) mRNA oscillation was attenuated in the SCN of V1a−/− mice (∼50% reduction in the peak levels). In vitro experiments demonstrated that AVP, acting through V1a receptor, was able to enhance the transcriptional activity of the PK2 promoter. These studies thus indicate that AVP-V1a signaling plays an important role in the generation of overt circadian rhythms.

The purpose of this study was to study the influence of the variability of weather and heliophysical factors on the appeal to the Ambulance service for different groups of nosologies in the population of the Russian North. Information about calls to the emergency medical service of Khanty-Mansiysk was obtained from the database of calls for the period from 2001 to 2021 by disease classes (ICD-10). To assess the dynamics of weather factors, data from the All-Russian Research Institute of Hydrometeorological Information and materials from the weather station of Khanty-Mansiysk were used. The dynamics of air temperature; barometric pressure; relative humidity; baric trend; maximum wind speed; weight oxygen content in the air are analyzed. Data on the relative daily number of sunspots are obtained from the materials of the Royal Observatory of Belgium. The average daily values of the level of planetary geomagnetic activity, expressed by the Ap index, are copied from the website of the National Center for Geophysical Data of the USA (Boulder). Mathematical processing was carried out using wavelet analysis. The graph of temperature fluctuations for the period from 2001 to 2021 shows a significant circadian cyclicity and a semi-annual rhythm with a high level of trend. Significant rhythms of barometric pressure with a period of 5 years, 1 year and rhythms close to semi-annual, seasonal and near-monthly are observed. Humidity changes significantly in the circadian and intra-annual rhythms. The baric tendency has significant rhythms: 3 years, 1 year, 6, 3, 2 months. Changes in the maximum wind speed do not have a circadian rhythm, but intra-annual monthly variations are observed. The value of the weight oxygen content has circadian; two-year, five-year; two- and near-monthly rhythms. The relative number of sunspots (W) for the period from 2001 to 2021 is characterized by a five-, two-year and circadian rhythm. When considering the variations of the number W for the period from 1818 to 2017, in addition to the classic eleven-year, annual and near-monthly, rhythms with a period of 42.5 years, 18.1 years and 2.1 years are found. The index of planetary geomagnetic activity (Ar) has a rhythm with a period of 4 years, two-year and near-annual. The significance of all rhythms is p=0.001. When analyzing fluctuations in geomagnetic activity from 1932 to 2016, long-term rhythms are added: 35.00 years; 16.06 years; 10.88 years; semi-annual and three-month rhythms. Despite numerous hypotheses of the search for cosmobiological harmony in the form of evolutionary synchronisms, rhythmic cascades, golden section, the problem of the interaction of exogenous natural rhythms and endogenous rhythms of the human body remains largely unresolved. Comparison of the results of various studies is difficult due to methodological and mathematical approaches. With observation periods of 100-200 years or more, a long-period component is monitored, and in clinical studies (from a day to a week), short-period components are detected. Changing the background in the form of helioclimatic and social variations also does not add accuracy. The use of various methods of time series analysis involves obtaining information of different resolution levels (Fourier transform, SWANN, wavelet analysis). Nevertheless, the results obtained track the classical rhythms of solar and geomagnetic activity with periods of about eleven years, a year and a month. There is also a 35-year-old rhythm, a 42.5-year-old rhythm close to the 44.16-year rhythm identified by Bezrukova A.Ya., at 18.1 years (long-period components of the lunar tide) and other intra-annual rhythms with periods from two weeks to 9 months. The effect of helioclimatic factors on human health indicates the absence of constant coherence (in our case, the consistency of these processes over time, manifested when they are combined), due to the presence of a large number of mega- and mesorhythms, which is manifested by amplitude and phase desynchronization of heliogeophysical indicators and health status.

In contrast to daily rhythms that are common in the presence of the geophysical light–dark cycle, organisms at polar latitudes exhibit many diel activity patterns during natural periods of continuous solar light or darkness (polar day and night, respectively), from 24 h rhythms to arrhythmicity. In Arctic Greenland (73.7° N, 56.6° W) during polar day, we observed breeding-site attendance rhythms of thick-billed murres ( Uria lomvia ; n = 21 pairs), a charadriiform seabird, which provide biparental care at the colony. We found that U. lomvia egg-incubation and chick-brooding attendance is rhythmic and synchronized to the geophysical day (mean period length [rhythm duration] ± 95% confidence interval = 24.13 ± 0.52 h). Individual pair members had temporally segregated, sex-specific colony-attendance rhythms that were opposite (inverted) to each other, and these sex-specific rhythms were prominent at the population level. Our results provide a basis for investigating circadian systems at polar latitudes and sex-specific parental-care strategies.

Motor activity possesses a multiscale regulation that is characterized by fractal activity fluctuations with similar structure across a wide range of timescales spanning minutes to hours. Fractal activity patterns are disturbed in animals after ablating the master circadian pacemaker (suprachiasmatic nucleus, SCN) and in humans with SCN dysfunction as occurs with aging and in dementia, suggesting the crucial role of the circadian system in the multiscale activity regulation. We hypothesized that the normal synchronization between behavioural cycles and the SCN-generated circadian rhythms is required for multiscale activity regulation. To test the hypothesis, we studied activity fluctuations of rats in a simulated shift work protocol that was designed to force animals to be active during the habitual resting phase of the circadian/daily cycle. We found that these animals had gradually decreased mean activity level and reduced 24-h activity rhythm amplitude, indicating disturbed circadian and behavioural cycles. Moreover, these animals had disrupted fractal activity patterns as characterized by more random activity fluctuations at multiple timescales from 4 to 12 h. Intriguingly, these activity disturbances exacerbated when the shift work schedule lasted longer and persisted even in the normal days (without forced activity) following the shift work. The disrupted circadian and fractal patterns resemble those of SCN-lesioned animals and of human patients with dementia, suggesting a detrimental impact of shift work on multiscale activity regulation.

Circadian rhythms are daily oscillations in physiology and behavior that can be assessed by recording body temperature, locomotor activity, or bioluminescent reporters, among other measures. These different types of data can vary greatly in waveform, noise characteristics, typical sampling rate, and length of recording. We developed 2 Shiny apps for exploration of these data, enabling visualization and analysis of circadian parameters such as period and phase. Methods include the discrete wavelet transform, sine fitting, the Lomb-Scargle periodogram, autocorrelation, and maximum entropy spectral analysis, giving a sense of how well each method works on each type of data. The apps also provide educational overviews and guidance for these methods, supporting the training of those new to this type of analysis. CIRCADA-E (Circadian App for Data Analysis–Experimental Time Series) allows users to explore a large curated experimental data set with mouse body temperature, locomotor activity, and PER2::LUC rhythms recorded from multiple tissues. CIRCADA-S (Circadian App for Data Analysis–Synthetic Time Series) generates and analyzes time series with user-specified parameters, thereby demonstrating how the accuracy of period and phase estimation depends on the type and level of noise, sampling rate, length of recording, and method. We demonstrate the potential uses of the apps through 2 in silico case studies.

The circadian clock has a profound effect on gene regulation, controlling rhythmic transcript accumulation for up to half of expressed genes in eukaryotes. Evidence also exists for clock control of mRNA translation, but the extent and mechanisms for this regulation are not known. In Neurospora crassa, the circadian clock generates daily rhythms in the activation of conserved mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways when cells are grown in constant conditions, including rhythmic activation of the well-characterized p38 osmosensing (OS) MAPK pathway. Rhythmic phosphorylation of the MAPK OS-2 (P-OS-2) leads to temporal control of downstream targets of OS-2. We show that osmotic stress in N. crassa induced the phosphorylation of a eukaryotic elongation factor-2 (eEF-2) kinase, radiation sensitivity complementing kinase-2 (RCK-2), and that RCK-2 is necessary for high-level phosphorylation of eEF-2, a key regulator of translation elongation. The levels of phosphorylated RCK-2 and phosphorylated eEF-2 cycle in abundance in wild-type cells but not in cells deleted for OS-2 or the core clock component FREQUENCY (FRQ). Translation extracts from cells grown in constant conditions show decreased translational activity in the late subjective morning, coincident with the peak in eEF-2 phosphorylation, and rhythmic translation of glutathione S-transferase (GST-3) from constitutive mRNA levels in vivo is dependent on circadian regulation of eEF-2 activity. In contrast, rhythms in phosphorylated eEF-2 levels are not necessary for rhythms in accumulation of the clock protein FRQ, indicating that clock control of eEF-2 activity promotes rhythmic translation of specific mRNAs.

Rest-activity circadian rhythm (RAR) analysis is a valuable tool to evaluate daily physical activity levels and sleep quality in breast cancer (BC) women, including BC survivors, a population less considered in the scientific literature. Indeed, the role of physical activity is recognised even in tertiary cancer prevention due to its action either on physical or psychological human spheres. In managing the quality of life in BC women, sleep assessment and its relationship with physical activity also raise attention. Several studies reported that an increase in physical activity practice might lead to better sleep quality. All these aspects have been less investigated in BRCA1/2 carrier women. BRCA1/2 are deleterious and high-invasive gene mutations, predisposing to a very aggressive breast and/or ovarian cancer also at a young age. The present PhD thesis evaluates RAR, sleep, and their relationship in two populations: a cohort of 5-year BC survivors and a sample of BRCA1/2 women. For the first study, 28 women (15 5-year BC survivors and 13 healthy controls) were 7-day long actigraph monitored and RAR analysis was performed with both parametric and non-parametric approaches. BC survivors showed a statistically lower MESOR (Midline Estimating Statistic of Rhythm), amplitude, L5 (nocturnal activity), and M10 (daily activity), while IV (Intradaily Variability) was higher than the control group. These results are the first experimental evidence that RAR alterations persist after 5 years since the primary diagnosis. Furthermore, BC survivors are less active than healthy controls and need practical intervention to increase their activity levels. For the second study, 27 women with BRCA1/2 mutations were 7-day long actigraph monitored, while 63 filled in the PSQI (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index) and the GSL-TPAQ (Godin Shepard Leisure-Time Physical Activity Questionnaire) questionnaires to assess sleep and physical activity, respectively. The 27 actigraph-monitored women were stratified, based on the development of cancer diagnosis, in affected and unaffected. RAR and actigraphic sleep analysis showed no statistically significant differences between the two groups, even though the affected women seemed to sleep worse than the unaffected. Based on the PSQI score, the women were stratified into good and bad sleepers: good sleepers were significantly more active than bad sleepers. Based on the GSL-TPAQ score, women were stratified into active and inactive: active women showed a better body composition and significantly lower insulin level and better sleep than inactive women. Finally, the regression analyses disclosed the positive effect of physical activity on sleep. More specifically, the prevalence ratio of being a good sleeper significantly increased with the increase in amount, intensity, and frequency of physical activity. This cross-sectional analysis of 63 women sheds light on a possible association between physical activity and sleep in BRCA1/2 mutation carriers. Considering the large attention that the BRCA1/2 carriers’ quality of life is receiving, a physical activity intervention could potentially improve the sleep quality in these women, also reflecting in an enhanced quality of life.

Most circadian clocks make use of a sun-based mechanism as the primary entraining signal to lock the internal day to the astronomical day. For nearly four billion years, dawn and dusk has been the main zeitgeber that allows entrainment. Circadian clocks are not exactly 24 hours. So to prevent daily patterns of activity and rest from freerunning over time, light can reset the clock. ‘Shedding light on the clock’ explains that the main circadian clock has been located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the hypothalamus. This also regulates the activity of the autonomic nervous system, but there are clocks in virtually every cell in the human body. Other zeitgebers include food, physical exercise, and temperature.

Circadian rhythms are endogenous 24-hour oscillations in physiology and behaviour that enable organisms to predict and adapt to the rhythmic changes of the day/night cycle. While the rhythm of activity and rest is perhaps the most familiar, changes in body temperature, heart rate, hormone production, and even cognitive function also occur. By contrast, the daily pattern of sleep and wake is not solely determined by the circadian system and is also regulated by a homeostatic process that increases with prolonged waking. Sleep and circadian rhythm disruption (SCRD) is commonly observed in psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, although it is unclear as to the basis of this comorbidity. The chapter provides an overview of the links between SCRD and schizophrenia, highlighting the potential sources of this association. Moreover, the chapter describes how targeted treatment of the underlying sleep and circadian disruption in this patient group may provide a novel therapeutic avenue to ameliorate their primary symptoms.