Upcoming lectures on sleep-wake rhythms disturbances and melatonin

Chrono@Work will be present at several symposia, classes and congresses in the upcoming period. Please have a look and subscribe if you are interested in the topic. 16th April 20:00h in Leeuwarden: Studium Generale Het Einde van de Zomertijd en Dan? 18th April whole day in Zeist: Medilex symposium on ‘Slaapproblemen en -stoornissen bij mensen met…

TV program FOCUS on health risks of night work

On November 7th, NTR presented a documentary FOCUS on the health risks of working at night and discusses possible solutions. In accordance with the reports of the Dutch Health Council 2015 and 2017, the most important point is to avoid working at night as much as possible. Roelof Hut from the University of Groningen and…

“Dokters van Morgen’ on the beneficial effects of light for sleep

In the Dutch Television program ‘Dokters van Morgen‘ on October 17th, Antoinette Herzenberg pays attention to the importance of a healthy sleep. As part of the program, five volunteers went camping during one weekend. Chrono@Work supported the program with scientific input and the analysis of light exposure, rest-activity rhythms and melatonin patterns. Following up on…

Charge your Brainzzz is live!

After a year of hard work we are there! The teaching materials for the package Charge Your Brainzzz are ready. Charge your Brains teaches highschool students about sleep. On 27 September, Chrono@Work and the Dutch Brain Foundation will launch this special educational package. Charge Your Brainzzz is a modern package with activating learning tools including…

Launching teaching material Charge Your Brainzzz

Wednesday September 27th, Chrono@Work and the Brain Foundation will launch the new teaching material Charge Your Brainzzz in the Corpus Congress Centre in Leiden. Charge Your Brainzzz consists of a package of three lessons about sleep regulation and sleep disorders, with activating learning tools, animations (to be used during class) and a serious game developed…

Educational paper published on Chronotherapeutic interventions

Chronotherapeutic interventions Marijke Gordijn of Chrono@Work co-authored a Dutch paper on Chronotherapeutic interventions in Psychiatry. She wrote this paper together with 3 colleagues with whom she also started Chronotherapy Network Netherlands (www.cnn.nl). The paper was published in the continuing education journal Psyfar. Since 2006, Psyfar focusses on educating and testing psychiatrists, hospital pharmacists, geriatrics specialists,…

Are blue light filters nonsense?

In their issue No. 19 of 23 August – 6 september, Computer Idee, a magazine about computers and electronics for consumers, pays detailed attention to the pros and cons of blue light filters for computers, tablets and smartphones. The conclusion is that we are exposed to more blue light through the use of electronic screens…

Save the date! Sleep 2016

Under the umbrella of the Dutch Association of Sleep-Wake Research (NSWO) and the Sleep Medicine Association Netherlands (SVNL) the first Dutch Sleep Congress, SLEEP 2016.will be organized on the 3-4 November, 2016 in the Heerlickheijd, Ermelo. The conference is a unique interdisciplinary collaboration between different departments working in the field of Sleep, e.g. pulmonologists, neurologists,…

Human cellular differences in cAMP – CREB signaling correlate with light-dependent melatonin suppression and bipolar disorder

Various lines of evidence suggest a mechanistic role for altered cAMP-CREB (cAMP response element – binding protein) signaling in depressive and affective disorders. However, the establishment and validation of human inter-individual differences in this and other major signaling pathways has proven difficult. Here, we describe a novel lentiviral methodology to investigate signaling variation over long periods of…

Effects of a chronic reduction of short-wavelength light input on melatonin and sleep patterns in humans: Evidence for adaptation

Light is an important environmental stimulus for the entrainment of the circadian clock and for increasing alertness. The intrinsically photosensitive ganglion cells in the retina play an important role in transferring this light information to the circadian system and they are elicited in particular by short-wavelength light. Exposure to short wavelengths is reduced, for instance, in elderly…

The biological clock modulates the human cortisol response in a multiplicative fashion

Human cortisol levels follow a clear circadian rhythm. We investigated the contribution of alternation of sleep and wakefulness and the circadian clock, using forced desynchrony. Cortisol levels were best described by a multiplication of a circadian and a wake-time component. The human cortisol response is modulated by circadian phase. Exposure to stress at an unnatural phase, as in…