Pj. Shiromani et Wj. Schwartz, TOWARDS A MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY OF THE CIRCADIAN CLOCK AND SLEEP OF MAMMALS, Advances in neuroimmunology, 5(2), 1995, pp. 217-230
Behavioral states of rest and activity are temporally organized. Since
the beginning of life on Earth, plants and animals have been forced t
o adapt to the daily rhythm of the planet's rotation about its axis. I
n complex vertebrates (birds and mammals), rest and activity have evol
ved into the electrophysiologically and behaviorally distinct states o
f sleep and wakefulness. The evolutionary emergence of bouts of rapid
eye movement (REM) sleep may be even more recent; the echidna, one of
the earliest mammals, lacks this sleep stage (Siegel et al., 1994). Th
e cycling of these behavioral states is under neural control, and much
is known about their cellular basis, but the underlying events at the
molecular level are virtually unknown. Here each of us highlights som
e of the new approaches for investigating the molecular substrate for
behavioral state control of circadian rhythmicity (WJS) and sleep (PJS
) in mammals.