Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder Revisited – a Case Study
CASE REPORT published: 29 February 2016 doi: 10.3389/fneur.2016.00017 Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder Revisited – a Case study Corrado Garbazza1,2† , Vivien Bromundt3† , Anne Eckert2,4 , Daniel P. Brunner5 , Fides Meier2,4 , Sandra Hackethal6 and Christian Cajochen1,2* 1 Centre for Chronobiology, Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland, 2 Transfaculty Research Platform Molecular and Cognitive Neurosciences, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland, 3 Sleep-Wake-Epilepsy-Centre, Department of Neurology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, Bern, Switzerland, 4 Neurobiology Laboratory for Brain Aging and Mental Health, Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland, 5 Center for Sleep Medicine, Hirslanden Clinic Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, 6 Charité – Universitaetsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany The human sleep-wake cycle is governed by two major factors: a homeostatic hourglass process (process S), which rises linearly during the day, and a circadian process C, which determines the timing of sleep in a ~24-h rhythm in accordance to the external Edited by: Ahmed S. BaHammam, light–dark (LD) cycle. While both individual processes are fairly well characterized, the King Saud University, Saudi Arabia exact nature of their interaction remains unclear. The circadian rhythm is generated by Reviewed by: the suprachiasmatic nucleus (“master clock”) of the anterior hypothalamus, through Axel Steiger, cell-autonomous feedback loops of DNA transcription and translation. While the phase Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Germany length (tau) of the cycle is relatively stable and genetically determined, the phase of Timo Partonen, the clock is reset by external stimuli (“zeitgebers”), the most important being the LD National Institute for Health and Welfare, Finland cycle.
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