Citation

Hillman DC, Siffre M, Milano G, Halberg F. New Trends Exp. Clin. Psychiatry 1994; 10(3): 127-133.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1994, CIC edizioni internazionali)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In a woman isolated from society in a cave for 103 days, alterations of her time structures (chronomes) of several physiologic variables are recorded: awakening, 'to bed' eating, drinking, defecation, urination, the intermicturition interval, the rates of urinary water and creatinine excretion, the caffeine metabolite ratio, urine temperature and the estimation of 2 minutes. Sleep-wakefulness reveals a wobbly circadian component longer than 24 hours, transiently shortening in the middle of the isolation span. Some other variables also follow a pattern of wobbly circadian free-running. Beyond circadians, the time series of sparse around-the-clock two-minute estimations reveals further a 3-month cycle which, because of its length, is not replicated during the span of isolation from society. Any association between chronome alteration and a psychopathology, eventually associated with suicide, constitutes post hoc reasoning, yet an emotional depression has been found earlier in isolation from society for 2 months or more, albeit without ensuing suicide.

Language: en

Keywords

adult; human; female; case report; sleep; social isolation; circadian rhythm; article; normal human; human experiment; micturition; feeding behavior; endogenous; free-running; synchronization; circadian; infradian; modulation