It has long been recognized that there is an association between sleep and mood. Both
of these phenomena are light-sensitive; light entrains the circadian clock, and too
little light predisposes a significant portion of the population to seasonal affective
disorder. Sleep deprivation can precipitate mania in patients with bipolar disease
(
1
) but can also be an effective treatment for “breaking” a bout of pharmacologically
refractory depression (
2
). Glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta has been shown to be a circadian gene in flies
(
3
) and mammals (
4
) and is a target of lithium therapy, which is useful in many patients with bipolar
disease. Some mice with mutations causing circadian phenotypes show mood-like behaviors.
However, people with mood disorders frequently experience difficulty falling and staying
asleep and can manifest circadian phenotypes (e.g., early morning awakening and diurnal
mood variation of severe depression) (
5
). Genetic variants in the circadian gene PER3 were recently shown to cause a human circadian phenotype associated with seasonal
affective disorder (
6
). Given this remarkable list of associations between sleep/circadian function and
mood, one is left asking: “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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References
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- Genetic disruption of circadian rhythms in the suprachiasmatic nucleus causes helplessness, behavioral despair, and anxiety-like behavior in mice.Biol Psychiatry. 2016; 80: 827-835
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Article Info
Publication History
Accepted:
September 22,
2016
Received in revised form:
September 21,
2016
Received:
September 16,
2016
Identification
Copyright
© Society of Biological Psychiatry, 2016.
ScienceDirect
Access this article on ScienceDirectLinked Article
- Genetic Disruption of Circadian Rhythms in the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus Causes Helplessness, Behavioral Despair, and Anxiety-like Behavior in MiceBiological PsychiatryVol. 80Issue 11
- PreviewMajor depressive disorder is associated with disturbed circadian rhythms. To investigate the causal relationship between mood disorders and circadian clock disruption, previous studies in animal models have employed light/dark manipulations, global mutations of clock genes, or brain area lesions. However, light can impact mood by noncircadian mechanisms; clock genes have pleiotropic, clock-independent functions; and brain lesions not only disrupt cellular circadian rhythms but also destroy cells and eliminate important neuronal connections, including light reception pathways.
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