Phenotyping Circadian Rhythms in Mice

Circadian rhythms take place with a periodicity of 24 hr, temporally following the rotation of the earth around its axis. Examples of circadian rhythms are the sleep/wake cycle, feeding, and hormone secretion. Light powerfully entrains the mammalian clock and assists in keeping animals synchronized to the 24-hour cycle of the earth by activating specific neurons in the "central pacemaker" of the brain, the suprachiasmatic nucleus. Absolute periodicity of an animal can deviate slightly from 24 hr as manifest when an animal is placed into constant dark or "free-running" conditions. Simple measurements of an organism's activity in free-running conditions reveal its intrinsic circadian period. Mice are a particularly useful model for studying circadian rhythmicity due to the ease of genetic manipulation, thus identifying molecular contributors to rhythmicity. Furthermore, their small size allows for monitoring locomotion or activity in their homecage environment with relative ease. Several tasks commonly used to analyze circadian periodicity and plasticity in mice are presented here including the process of entrainment, determination of tau (period length) in free-running conditions, determination of circadian periodicity in response to light disruption (e.g., jet lag studies), and evaluation of clock plasticity in non-24-hour conditions (T-cycles). Studying the properties of circadian periods such as their phase, amplitude, and length in response to photic perturbation, can be particularly useful in understanding how humans respond to jet lag, night shifts, rotating shifts, or other transient or chronic disruption of environmental surroundings.