Hey Night Owls: It's in Your Genes

Your preference for being a "lark" or a "night-owl" is largely determined by genes, a study suggests.
Research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that skin cells can be used to measure the speed of a person's internal body clock, which can be affected by various genes..

The work could lead to better diagnosis of sleep disorders and conditions such as Seasonal Affective Disorder.

It has long been known that the body has a biological clock that regulates sleeping, digestion and brain performance to fit in with the different demands of day and night-time living.It now also appears that virtually all cells in the body have their own ticking circadian clock, including skin cells

A German-Swiss team led by Dr Steven Brown of the University of Zurich took skin biopsies from 28 volunteers and grew their cells up in the lab. They measured how fast the "clocks" in the skin cells "ticked", then compared these results with questionnaires showing whether each subject was an early type ("lark") or a late type ("owl").

The central circadian clock resides in the hypothalamus in the brain, he added. It keeps in touch with the outside world by means of light signals from the eyes, and then synchronises numerous other peripheral clocks in tissues around the body such as the heart, liver and gut.

Posted by Jason McManus.

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Link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7212362.stm