Circadian rhythms in sleep-wakefulness and wheel-running activity in a congenitally anophthalmic rat mutant.
Circadian rhythms were examined in a congenitally anophthalmic rat mutant. All bilaterally anophthalmic rats had clear circadian rhythms in sleep-wakefulness as well as in locomotor activity, but the rhythms did not entrain to the light-dark (LD) cycle. However, two unilaterally anophthalmic rats, like sighted rats, reentrained their sleep-wakefulness rhythms to the LD cycle in 4 days after a 6 hr delaying phase-shift. The hypogenesis of the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) that is correlated with absence of circadian activity rhythms in anophthalmic mice was not observed in these anophthalmic rats.
D000818:Animals; D000853:Anophthalmos / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002940:Circadian Rhythm; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D011922:Rats, Mutant Strains; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology*; D014851:Wakefulness / Q000502:physiology*