Spinal Cord Injury Linked to Disruption of Circadian Rhythm

Dec 6, 2018

 

A new study by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin suggests such injuries could throw off the internal clock of the entire body’s daily activities, from hormones to sleep-wake schedules.

The spinal cord helps transfer information between the body and brain, controlling functions such as movement, sensation and autonomic functions, but new findings, published in eNeuro, show it also plays a heavy hand in the circadian system — the body’s master clock that regulates the 24-hour rhythms of every cell in the body.