WIKIMEDIA, RAMAWhen fed during the day, mice, typically nocturnal animals, are less likely to explore novel objects and remember fearful places, according to research presented this week (November 17) at the ongoing Society for Neuroscience (SfN) conference in Washington, DC.
Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, gave mice access to food for six hours either during the day, when they are normally sleeping, or at night. The result of such a feeding schedule is that “it misaligns the clocks in the body,” group member Dawn Loh told The Scientist. The body’s master clock, the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the hypothalamus, entrains to light and is largely unaffected, as are other bodily clocks that take their cues from the sun or from the SCN. But other endogenously rhythmic tissues, such as the liver, are affected, and become out of phase with the SCN and other, unaffected clocks.
One of the affected clocks resides in the hippocampus, an important brain region for learning and memory. ...
