Biological rhythms and technology (original) (raw)
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Journal of medical Internet research, 2018
Experimental and epidemiologic studies have shown that circadian clocks' disruption can play an important role in the development of cancer and metabolic diseases. The cellular clocks outside the brain are effectively coordinated by the body temperature rhythm. We hypothesized that concurrent measurements of body temperature and rest-activity rhythms would assess circadian clocks coordination in individual patients, thus enabling the integration of biological rhythms into precision medicine. The objective was to evaluate the circadian clocks' coordination in healthy subjects and patients through simultaneous measurements of rest-activity and body temperature rhythms. Noninvasive real-time measurements of rest-activity and chest temperature rhythms were recorded during the subject's daily life, using a dedicated new mobile electronic health platform (PiCADo). It involved a chest sensor that jointly measured accelerations, 3D orientation, and skin surface temperature every...
Mobile Sensing of Alertness, Sleep, and Circadian Rhythm
GetMobile: Mobile Computing and Communications, 2020
uman biology is deeply rooted in the daily 24-hour temporal period. Our biochemistry varies significantly and idiosyncratically over the course of a day. Staying out of sync with one's circadian rhythm can lead to many complications over time, including a higher likelihood for cardiovascular disease, cancer, obesity, and mental health problems [1]. Constant changes in daily rhythm due to shift work has been shown to increase risk factors for cancer, obesity, and Type 2 diabetes. Moreover, the advent of technology and the resultant always-on ethos can cause rhythm disruption on personal and societal levels for about 70% of the population [2]. Circadian disruption can also cause a serious deficit in cognitive performance. In particular, alertness-a key biological process underlying our cognitive performance-reflects circadian rhythms [3]. Sleep deprivation and circadian disruption can result in poor alertness and reaction time [3]. The decline in cognitive performance after 20 to 25 hours of wakefulness is equivalent to a Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) of 0.10% [4]. To compare, in New York State, a BAC of more than 0.05% is considered "impaired" and 0.08% is considered "intoxicated" [5]. In other words, the effects of sustained sleep deprivation and circadian disruption on cognitive performance is similar (or worse) to being intoxicated.
Proceedings of the 2016 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing, 2016
Throughout the day, our alertness levels change and our cognitive performance fluctuates. The creation of technology that can adapt to such variations requires reliable measurement with ecological validity. Our study is the first to collect alertness data in the wild using the clinically validated Psychomotor Vigilance Test. With 20 participants over 40 days, we find that alertness can oscillate approximately 30% depending on time and body clock type and that Daylight Savings Time, hours slept, and stimulant intake can influence alertness as well. Based on these findings, we develop novel methods for unobtrusively and continuously assessing alertness. In estimating response time, our model achieves a root-mean-square error of 80.64 milliseconds, which is significantly lower than the 500ms threshold used as a standard indicator of impaired cognitive ability. Finally, we discuss how such real-time detection of alertness is a key first step towards developing systems that are sensitive to our biological variations.
2020
BACKGROUND Collecting data on daily habits across a population of individuals is challenging. Mobile-based circadian ecological momentary assessment (cEMA) is a powerful frame for observing the impact of daily living on long-term health. OBJECTIVE In this paper we: 1) Describe the design, testing, and rationale for specifications of a mobile-based cEMA application to collect timing of eating and sleeping data, and 2) Compare cEMA and survey data collected as part of a 6-month observational cohort study. The ultimate goal of this paper is to summarize our experience and lessons learned with the Daily24 mobile application and to highlight the pros and cons of this data collection modality. METHODS Design specifications for the Daily24 application were drafted by the study team based on the research questions and target audience for the cohort study. The associated backend was optimized to provide real-time data to the study team for participant monitoring and engagement. An external e...
Clocks & Sleep, 2021
Previously, we presented our preliminary results (N = 14) investigating the effects of short-wavelength light from a smartphone during the evening on sleep and circadian rhythms (Höhn et al., 2021). Here, we now demonstrate our full sample (N = 33 men), where polysomnography and body temperature were recorded during three experimental nights and subjects read for 90 min on a smartphone with or without a filter or from a book. Cortisol, melatonin and affectivity were assessed before and after sleep. These results confirm our earlier findings, indicating reduced slow-wave-sleep and -activity in the first night quarter after reading on the smartphone without a filter. The same was true for the cortisol-awakening-response. Although subjective sleepiness was not affected, the evening melatonin increase was attenuated in both smartphone conditions. Accordingly, the distal-proximal skin temperature gradient increased less after short-wavelength light exposure than after reading a book. Int...
Mobile manifestations of alertness
Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, 2016
Our body clock causes considerable variations in our behavioral, mental, and physical processes, including alertness, throughout the day. While much research has studied technology usage patterns, the potential impact of underlying biological processes on these patterns is under-explored. Using data from 20 participants over 40 days, this paper presents the first study to connect patterns of mobile application usage with these contributing biological factors. Among other results, we find that usage patterns vary for individuals with different body clock types, that usage correlates with rhythms of alertness, that app use features such as duration and switching can distinguish periods of low and high alertness, and that app use reflects sleep interruptions as well as sleep duration. We conclude by discussing how our findings inform the design of biologically-friendly technology that can better support personal rhythms of performance.
Synchronize Your Biological Rhythm
Current Trends in diagnosis & Treatment
Synchronize Your Biological Rhythm "Rhythm is sound in motion. It is related to the pulse, the heartbeat, the way we breathe. It rises and falls. It takes us into ourselves; it takes us out of ourselves." Edward Hirsch We all have an internal biological clock that coordinates our circadian rhythm. It operates on a roughly 24 hrs cycle and is calibrated by the appearance and disappearance of natural light. Sunlight teaches the master clock in the brain to keep on track. The rotation of our planet around its central axis creates daily rhythm in environment factors, light intensity, temperature and availability of food. Organisms adapt to the changes present in their environment to enhance their survival. Most of the living organisms, including humans have evolved a biological clock that can anticipate and adapt these 24 hrs changes in the environment. This internal clock in humans resides in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in the ventral hypothalamus. 1 Besides light, exercise, hormones and medications affect the SCN and setting of circadian rhythm. The SCN has around 20,000 neurons responsible for generating the rhythm. The neurons receive signals from the eye using light information projected via retinohypothalmic tract (RHT), which is then passed on to other areas of the brain. 2, 3 The nobel assembly at Karolinska Institute has awarded 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine jointly to Jeffrey C Hall, Michael Rosbach and Michael W Young for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm. Hall and Rosbach both worked at Brandeis University in USA when they began their Nobelwinning work. Hall is presently associated with University of Maine. Michael Young is a faculty at Rockfeller University in USA. Their work explains how plants, animals and humans adapt their biological clock to synchronize with the Earth's revolutions. The Nobel laureates isolated a gene which controls the biological rhythm, using fruit flies (Drosophila) as their experimental organism. In 1984 Jeffrey C Hall and Michael Rosbach together and also Michael Young almost at the same time succeeded in isolating the period gene, they later discovered that PER-the protein coded by this gene accumulates at night and disintegrates during the day. 4, 5 The PER protein oscillate over a 24 hrs cycle in synchrony with the circadian rhythm. There is also an inhibitory feedback loop by which PER can regulate its own level throughout the day, therefore whenever PER levels increased in the cells its production decreased. 6 But the question remained as to how PER protein formed in the cytoplasm reaches the nucleus. In 1994 Michael Young discovered a second gene timeless, encoding the TIM protein required for circadian rhythm (Fig. 1). When TIM was bound to PER, the two proteins were able to enter the nucleus where they blocked period gene activity to close the inhibitory feedback loop. 7 These two proteins accumulate in the cytoplasm, but move into the nucleus of the cells if co-expressed. Regulation of cytoplasmic localization domains activity by assembly of PER/ TIM complex is seen to be a key determinant of period length. 8
Can Sequence Mining Improve Your Morning Mood? Toward a Precise Non-invasive Smart Clock
Proceedings of the 2014 International Workshop on Web Intelligence and Smart Sensing - IWWISS '14, 2014
The aim of this paper is to present our preliminary approach and work in progress in the design of sequence mining techniques for a new smart clock alarm. This clock alarm will ring the user at the most physiological opportune moment in a predefined time frame. We rely on a wearable biosensor collecting various signals (ECG, movement, temperature) and on algorithms that dynamically mine into the sequences of heterogeneous data to identify sleep cycles. The system will be less intrusive and more accurate than others. This paper presents the underlying domains, the method and the experiments we are implementing.
Portable Device-Based Stress Level Estimation Using Biological Rhythms
Springer, 2024
Stress creates a major health-related issue in our society, because many health-related problems, such as a lot of economic losses, social disruptions, and human mental problems, are the consequences of it. In general, humans experience stress, especially those who are involved in work in developed capitalist countries and under huge mental workloads continuously and endless technological development. Stressors come across in our daily life (for instance, the difference of opinion among family members or hard work deadlines) and may play a vital role in personal health and well-being. In this study, we introduce a model of health awareness system that incorporates two assessment strategies: questionnaire asking method and physical
SLEEP-WAKE AS A BIOLOGICAL RHYTHM
Key Words sleep-wake rhythms, free-running rhythms, light, melatonin s Abstract Evidence that the sleep-wake rhythm is generated endogenously has been provided by studies employing a variety of experimental paradigms such as sleep deprivation, sleep displacement, isolating subjects in environments free of time cues, or imposing on subjects sleep-wake schedules widely deviating from 24 hours. The initial observations obtained in isolated subjects revealed that the period of the en-dogenous circadian pacemaker regulating sleep is of approximately 25 hours. More recent studies, however, in which a more rigorous control of subjects' behavior was exerted, particularly over lighting conditions, have shown that the true periodicity of the endogenous pacemaker deviates from 24 hours by a few minutes only. Besides sleep propensity, the circadian pacemaker has been shown to regulate sleep consolidation , sleep stage structure, and electroencephalographic activities. The pattern of light exposure throughout the 24 hours appears to participate in the entrainment of the circadian pacemaker to the geophysical day-night cycle. Melatonin, the pineal hormone produced during the dark hours, participates in communicating both between the environmental light-dark cycle and the circadian pacemaker, and between the circa-dian pacemaker and the sleep-wake-generating mechanism. In contrast to prevailing views that have placed great emphasis on homeostatic sleep drive, recent data have revealed a potent circadian cycle in the drive for wakefulness, which is generated by the suprachiasmatic nucleus. This drive reaches a peak during the evening hours just before habitual bedtime. CONTENTS