Journal of Circadian Rhythms Volume 1

Viewing options:  Abstract  Full text  PDF (2.3MB)  Additional files Associated material:  Readers' comments  PubMed record Related literature:  Articles citing this article on BioMed Central on Google Scholar on PubMed Central  Other articles by authors on Google Scholar Halberg F Cornélissen G Katinas G Syutkina EV Sothern RB Zaslavskaya R Halberg F Watanabe Y Schwartzkopff O Otsuka K Tarquini R Frederico P Siggelova J on PubMed Halberg F Cornélissen G Katinas G Syutkina EV Sothern RB Zaslavskaya R Halberg F Watanabe Y Schwartzkopff O Otsuka K Tarquini R Frederico P Siggelova J  Related articles/pages on Google on Google Scholar on PubMed Tools:  Download citation(s)  Download XML  Email to a friend  Order reprints  Post a comment  Sign up for article alerts Post to:  Citeulike  Connotea  Del.icio.us  Digg  Facebook

circadian tremor-activating mechanism in ET

Bernhard A Kats   (14 May 2005)  Ben Gurion University, Beersheva, Israel

My Groups MDOET · ET2005

From: "Bernhard A Kats" <quibi02@yahoo.com>

Date: Sat May 14, 2005 8:17 am

Several patients have reported to me worsening of tremor activity when crossing several

time-zones from East to West, like flying from Europe to the US. This change occurs gradually in the course of 48 hours, regardless of the season. When flying home from West to East, the tremor improves in a few hours.

This suggests involvement of the hypothalamus, specifically the suprachiasmatic nucleus or biological "clock", that controls the body's circadian rhythms.

Questions:

Could a melatonin agonist like the research drug LY 156735 speed up this readaptation time?

Or could targeting genes that encode the proteins governing circadian rhythms

and that affect this adaptability yield new treatments for ET and other disorders of

circadian rhythm?

Competing interests

None declared

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Reply to Professor Kats' query

Roberto Refinetti   (15 May 2005)  Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Circadian Rhythms

Professor Halberg, as the author of the referenced article, may have a different answer, but my feeling is that more information about the problem is needed before a solution can be sought. In principle, the desynchrony between the circadian clock and the outside clock caused by transmeridian travel could have many effects, including the reported worsening of tremor activity. However, the fact that the tremor improves in a few hours upon return home suggests that circadian desynchrony is not the central issue. More likely, the worsening of tremor activity is an acute effect of the trip (pressure changes in the airplane, change in weather from origin to destination, air-borne allergens, etc.). As for the question of whether targeting genes that encode the proteins governing circadian rhythms could yield new treatments for disorders of circadian rhythm, the answer is certainly "yes", although any such treatment is many years (probably decades) in the future.

Competing interests

None declared

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