Inner retinal circadian clocks and non-visual photoreceptors: novel players in the circadian system

GUIDO ME; GARBARINO-PICO E; CONTIN MA; VALDEZ DJ; NIETO PS; VERRA DM; ACOSTA-RODRÍGUEZ VICTORIA A.; DE ZABALIA N; ROSENSTEIN RE

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

Año: 2010 vol. 92 p. 484 - 484

p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal">Daily and annual changes in ambient illumination serve as specific stimuli that associate light with time and regulate the physiology of the organism through the eye. The eye acts as a dual sense organ linking light and vision, and detecting light that provides specific stimuli for non-classical photoreceptors located in the inner retina. These photoreceptors convey information to the master circadian pacemaker, the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN). Responsible for sensing the light that regulates several non-visual functions (i.e. behavior, pupil reflex, sleep, and pineal melatonin production), the retina plays a key role in the temporal symphony orchestra playing the musical score of life: it is intrinsically rhythmic in its physiological and metabol