Chronobiology
Author: Manuel Tomás Crespo | email: manuel.crespo94@outlook.com
Manuel Tomás Crespo 1°, Julieta Acosta 1°, Diego Andrés Golombek 1°, Juan José Chiesa 1°, Patricia Verónica Agostino 1°
1° Laboratorio de Cronobiología / Departamento de Ciencia y Tecnología / Universidad Nacional de Quilmes
The circadian system regulates behavioral and physiological processes, including the response to natural and drug rewards. In mammals, light is the main synchronizer. On the other hand, when food is temporally restricted, animals display an anticipatory food activity (FAA) controlled by a food-entrainable oscillator (FEO). We have previously shown that mice exhibit a circadian rhythm in motivation for food reward. In this work, we further explored motivation behavior through two different approaches: when food is the main synchronizer (by a time-restricted feeding protocol, TRF) and when circadian disruptions of the light/dark (LD) cycle occur (by a chronic jet lag protocol, CJL). In the TRF protocol, mice were allowed to consume food only 3 hours/day. Results show that mice are highly motivated to work for food reward when FAA is present regardless of the time of day, suggesting that components related to reward pathways might be activated and consequently generate an increase in motivation. In the CJL protocol – which consisted of 6-hour phase advances of the LD schedule every 2 days the CJL group showed diminished motivation compared to controls, suggesting that forced circadian desynchronization affects reward-related behaviors. Together, these findings contribute to gain knowledge in potential mechanisms of circadian modulation of motivational states in order to improve treatment related to psychiatric disorders or drugs of abuse.