Dr. Amitabha Bose (Mathematical Sciences, New Jersey Institue of Technology)

2/28/2024  3:10pm

Abstract: 

A central feature of circadian systems is their response to an external, pacemaking 24 hour light-dark drive which typically leads to entrainment of the circadian oscillator, represented by a stable period orbit in the appropriate mathematical phase space.  There are, however, several naturally arising situations in which a circadian system is incapable of entrainment, either due to abnormal intrinsic properties of the oscillators or due to changes in the light-dark (LD) input that the oscillators receive. In this talk, we describe circumstances that fall outside the normal fixed phase relationship between LD forcing and oscillator such as during jet lag and non-24 hour sleep-wake disorder.  In these cases, the goal is to use mathematical and computational techniques to assess, in the case of jet lag, the time to reentrainment, and in the latter, to induce a stable periodic solution through appropriate intervention. It is the reduction of these studies to a one-dimensional “entrainment map” and the ensuing use of the map that will be the focus of the talk.