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Feeding Time And Its Effect On Sleep Quality Essay

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Title: Feeding Time and its Effect on Sleep Quality
Hypothesis:
I hypothesize that if mice are fed during their inactive phase in the day, then they will experience a decrease in their quality of sleep as opposed to mice that experienced no decrease in sleep quality due to an alteration in feeding time because the change in the time mice are fed will cause a phase shift in their circadian rhythm, therefore disrupting their overall sleep quality.
Introduction:
All forms of life have their distinct predictable daily schedules known as the circadian rhythm. This endogenous twenty-four hour rhythm controls the metabolic, behavioral, and biological functions of an organism’s system. In mammals, the circadian clock is located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) which is a group of cells positioned on the anterior hypothalamus in the brain. A disruption in the circadian rhythms sleep/wake cycle disrupts the timing and pattern of sleep in mice and thus, alters the quality of sleep overall [1]. The quality of sleep has often been determined by the frequency of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep present in the sleep cycle, the more frequent meaning a higher quality of sleep.
Both external and internal cues that affect the mice circadian rhythm have been studied by researchers in order to ascertain a more in depth understanding as to how abnormal sleep patterns play a role in the development of chronic health problems such as heart disease and high blood pressure [2]. Based on the

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