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Circadian rhythms: Of owls, larks and alarm clocks

Nature volume 458, pages 142–144 (2009)Cite this article

Could out-of-sync body clocks be contributing to human disease? Melissa Lee Phillips reports.

Ten years ago, researchers reported on three families with an extreme 'lark' problem. Larks are people who naturally wake up early in the morning, and are the opposite of 'owls', who wake up and go to sleep late. But many of the members of these families had particularly acute larkness, waking up on average around 4 a.m. and falling asleep around 7.30 p.m.1. The researchers later found that the families, who were diagnosed with familial advanced sleep-phase syndrome (FASPS), all carried mutations in a gene called PER2, which is involved in setting the human body clock2.

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Authors
  1. Melissa Lee Phillips
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Melissa Lee Phillips is a freelance writer based in Seattle, Washington.

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Phillips, M. Circadian rhythms: Of owls, larks and alarm clocks. Nature 458, 142–144 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/458142a

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