Biochemical Aspects of Rhythms: Phase Shifting by Chemicals
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Excerpt
Studies concerned with the biochemistry of rhythmic systems are concerned directly with the central issue, namely, what is the physicochemical nature of the mechanism and how does it operate.
An evaluation of the perspectives of the problem is certainly difficult, but it is clear that thirty years ago the biochemical approach dealt with the problem which was then of major concern, namely, does rhythmicity have an endogenous physicochemical mechanism, or is the timing strictly governed by an external or exogenous factor.
One may find many experiments concerned with biochemical evidence supporting this view [1, 2, 3], some of which, however, [4, 5] have not been substantiated in later experiments [6, 7].
Today the biochemical approach is more concerned with mechanism. Although subtle refinements of the endogenous-exogenous question are still discussed [8, 9, 10], all workers agree that an endogenous clock-like cellular mechanism exists, operating to bring about physiological and biochemical...
