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Doctor Ravi Allada, an Indian-American circadian rhythms expert at Northwestern University in Illinois has identified sleep wake mechanism. They found how an animal's biological clock wakes it up in the morning and puts it to sleep at night. The findings were published in the journal, Cell.
At night, high potassium channel activity turn them off, allowing the animal to sleep. Allada was surprised to discover the same sleep-wake switch in both flies and mice. This oscillation mechanism appears to be conserved across several hundred million years of evolution. "This suggests the underlying mechanism controlling our sleep-wake cycle is ancient," Allada said.
The researchers call this a "bicycle" mechanism: two pedals that go up and down across a 24-hour day, conveying important time information to the neurons.
The researchers found the two pedals -- a sodium current and potassium currents -- active in both the simple fruit fly and the more complex mouse was unexpected. The balance between sodium and potassium currents controls the animal's circadian rhythms.
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