Atanu Kumar Pati is an Indian zoologist, serving as the Vice-Chancellor Gangadhar Meher University (GMU) Sambalpur, Odisha. [1]
Pati did his B.Sc. from Utkal University and M.Sc. (1977) and Ph.D. (1982) in Zoology from Banaras Hindu University. He has also received the UGC Research Award in 2002. He has also been elected as Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India (FNASc) in 2003. He presided the Indian Society for Chronobiology as its president from 2008 till 2017. He served the International Society of Subterranean Biology [Société Internationale de Biospéologie] as its Council Member, from 2004 to 2010. He is also Professor, Head, Dean, School of Life Sciences Pandit Ravishankar Shukla University (on lien).
BSc (1975) - Utkal University; MSc (1977) - Banaras Hindu University; PhD (1982) - Banaras Hindu University; Cours de Chronobiologie (1986) - L’Université V, Paris. Post-doctoral research at Hôpital Paul Brousse, Villejuif (L’Université V, Paris). Faculty — School of Life Sciences - (1983- Present). Council Member, World Federation of Societies of Chronobiology, 2002–2006. Recipient of UGC Research Award, 2002. Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (FNASc), India, 2003. Council Member, International Society of Subterranean Biology, 2004–2010. Member, International Scientific Board, 1st, 2nd, 3rd International Congress of Applied Chronobiology and Chronomedicine. Editor-in-Chief, Newsletter, Indian Society for Chronobiology, 1995–1997, 2000–2009. Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Ravishankar University, Part B (Science) from 2009–present. President, Indian Society for Chronobiology, from 2009–present.
The main focus of his research involves study of circadian clocks in shift workers, cancer patients and cave fish. In addition, he studies cognitive abilities, with reference to short-interval judgment, in human subjects. He also studied cognitive abilities involving case construction behavior in a species of bagworm moth. He demonstrated alteration in temporal organization in human subjects, who carry out rotational shift duties. He reported disruption of circadian rhythm in cognitive judgment of short-time intervals in shift workers. He proposed a model for optimization of human shift work. He reported that shift work might reduce human longevity. He reported disruption of circadian clock in cancer patients and suggested implementation of patient-specific chronotherapeutic protocol. He demonstrated functional circadian oscillators in cave fish and reinterpreted findings of others to rule out the hypothesis of clock regression in hypogean fish. He reported rhythmic pattern in case architecture of bagworm moth. He proposed a model illustrating the ability of this moth to process thorn length and distance signals hierarchically during case construction through toggling its preference between thorns and cut-twigs.
A circadian rhythm, or circadian cycle, is a natural oscillation that repeats roughly every 24 hours. Circadian rhythms can refer to any process that originates within an organism and responds to the environment. Circadian rhythms are regulated by a circadian clock whose primary function is to rhythmically co-ordinate biological processes so they occur at the correct time to maximise the fitness of an individual. Circadian rhythms have been widely observed in animals, plants, fungi and cyanobacteria and there is evidence that they evolved independently in each of these kingdoms of life.
Delayed sleep phase disorder (DSPD), more often known as delayed sleep phase syndrome and also as delayed sleep–wake phase disorder, is the delaying of a person's circadian rhythm compared to those of societal norms. The disorder affects the timing of biological rhythms including sleep, peak period of alertness, core body temperature, and hormonal cycles.
Non-24-hour sleep–wake disorder is one of several chronic circadian rhythm sleep disorders (CRSDs). It is defined as a "chronic steady pattern comprising [...] daily delays in sleep onset and wake times in an individual living in a society". Symptoms result when the non-entrained (free-running) endogenous circadian rhythm drifts out of alignment with the light–dark cycle in nature. Although this sleep disorder is more common in blind people, affecting up to 70% of the totally blind, it can also affect sighted people. Non-24 may also be comorbid with bipolar disorder, depression, and traumatic brain injury. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) has provided CRSD guidelines since 2007 with the latest update released in 2015.
A zeitgeber is any external or environmental cue that entrains or synchronizes an organism's biological rhythms, usually naturally occurring and serving to entrain to the Earth's 24-hour light/dark and 12-month cycles.
Ignacio Provencio is an American neuroscientist and the discoverer of melanopsin, an opsin found in specialized photosensitive ganglion cells of the mammalian retina. Provencio served as the program committee chair of the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms from 2008 to 2010.
A chronotype is the behavioral manifestation of underlying circadian rhythm's myriad of physical processes. A person's chronotype is the propensity for the individual to sleep at a particular time during a 24-hour period. Eveningness and morningness are the two extremes with most individuals having some flexibility in the timing of their sleep period. However, across development there are changes in the propensity of the sleep period with pre-pubescent children preferring an advanced sleep period, adolescents preferring a delayed sleep period and many elderly preferring an advanced sleep period.
Cavefish or cave fish is a generic term for fresh and brackish water fish adapted to life in caves and other underground habitats. Related terms are subterranean fish, troglomorphic fish, troglobitic fish, stygobitic fish, phreatic fish and hypogean fish.
Jürgen Walther Ludwig Aschoff was a German physician, biologist and behavioral physiologist. Together with Erwin Bünning and Colin Pittendrigh, he is considered to be a co-founder of the field of chronobiology.
Serge Daan was a Dutch scientist, known for his significant contributions to the field of Chronobiology.
Charles A. Czeisler is an American physician and sleep researcher. He is a researcher and author in the fields of both circadian rhythms and sleep medicine.
Colin Stephenson Pittendrigh was a British-born biologist who spent most of his adult life in the United States. Pittendrigh is regarded as the "father of the biological clock," and founded the modern field of chronobiology alongside Jürgen Aschoff and Erwin Bünning. He is known for his careful descriptions of the properties of the circadian clock in Drosophila and other species, and providing the first formal models of how circadian rhythms entrain (synchronize) to local light-dark cycles.
Ueli Schibler is a Swiss biologist, chronobiologist and a professor at the University of Geneva. His research has contributed significantly to the field of chronobiology and the understanding of circadian clocks in the body. Several of his studies have demonstrated strong evidence for the existence of robust, self-sustaining circadian clocks in the peripheral tissues.
A circannual cycle is a biological process that occurs in living creatures over the period of approximately one year. This cycle was first discovered by Ebo Gwinner and Canadian biologist Ted Pengelley. It is classified as an Infradian rhythm, which is biological process with a period longer than that of a circadian rhythm, less than one cycle per 24 hours. These processes continue even in artificial environments in which seasonal cues have been removed by scientists. The term circannual is Latin, circa meaning approximately and annual relating to one year. Chronobiology is the field of biology pertaining to periodic rhythms that occur in living organisms in response to external stimuli such as photoperiod.
Michael Smolensky is an American chronobiologist working in hypertension and pathophysiology.
James "Jim" William Truman is an American chronobiologist known for his seminal research on circadian rhythms in silkmoth (Saturniidae) eclosion, particularly the restoration of rhythm and phase following brain transplantation. He is a professor emeritus at the University of Washington and a former senior fellow at Howard Hughes Medical Institution Janelia Research Campus.
Achim Kramer is a German chronobiologist and biochemist. He is the current head of Chronobiology at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin in Berlin, Germany.
Ken-Ichi Honma is a Japanese chronobiologist who researches the biological mechanisms underlying circadian rhythms. After graduating from Hokkaido University School of Medicine, he practiced clinical psychiatry before beginning his research. His recent research efforts are centered around photic and non-photic entrainment, the structure of circadian clocks, and the ontogeny of circadian clocks. He often collaborates with his wife, Sato Honma, in work involving the mammalian suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), its components, and associated topics.
Nicholas Mrosovsky was a Canadian zoologist known for his research in the fields of homeostasis, chronobiology, and sea turtle biology. He spent his whole professional career at the University of Toronto. His laboratory was notable for its seminal investigations of the influence of behavioural arousal on circadian rhythms. He was also the founder, in 1976, of Marine Turtle Newsletter. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1973, and in 1993 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Eclosion assays are experimental procedures used to study the process of eclosion in insects, particularly in the model organism drosophila. Eclosion is the process in which an adult insect emerges from its pupal case, or a larval insect hatches from its egg. In holometabolous insects, the circadian clock regulates the timing of adult emergence. The daily rhythm of adult emergence in these insects was among the first circadian rhythms to be investigated. The circadian clock in these insects enforces a daily pattern of emergence by permitting or triggering eclosion during specific time frames and preventing emergence during other periods.
An actogram is a plot that shows rhythms in biological variables throughout the day. Traditionally, actograms describe phases of activity and rest, but they have also been used to visualize rhythms in protein phosphorylation, gene expression, and hormone secretion. Actograms are commonly used to study the underlying circadian rhythms of animals in fields such as ecology, reproductive biology, and sleep medicine.