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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Clare GuildingORCiD, Dr John Gigg
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Regular exercise is important for physical and mental health. An underexplored and intriguing property of exercise is its actions on the body’s 24 h or circadian rhythms. Molecular clock cells in the brain’s suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) use electrical and chemical signals to orchestrate their activity and convey time of day information to the rest of the brain and body. To date, the long-lasting effects of regular physical exercise on SCN clock cell coordination and communication remain unresolved. Utilizing mouse models in which SCN intercellular neuropeptide signaling is impaired as well as those with intact SCN neurochemical signaling, we examined how daily scheduled voluntary exercise (SVE) influenced behavioral rhythms and SCN molecular and neuronal activities. We show that in mice with disrupted neuropeptide signaling, SVE promotes SCN clock cell synchrony and robust 24 h rhythms in behavior. Interestingly, in both intact and neuropeptide signaling deficient animals, SVE reduces SCN neural activity and alters GABAergic signaling. These findings illustrate the potential utility of regular exercise as a long-lasting and effective non-invasive intervention in the elderly or mentally ill where circadian rhythms can be blunted and poorly aligned to the external world.
Author(s): Hughes ATL, Samuels RE, Baño-Otálora B, Belle MDC, Wegner S, Guilding C, Northeast RC, Loudon ASI, Gigg J, Piggins HD
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Communications Biology
Year: 2021
Volume: 4
Online publication date: 18/06/2021
Acceptance date: 18/05/2021
Date deposited: 18/06/2021
ISSN (electronic): 2399-3642
Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
URL: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02239-2
DOI: 10.1038/s42003-021-02239-2
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