mechanisms for waking you up

robertjford80

Photons hit our eyes or bodies which activate a certain hormone which causes us to wake up. Does anyone know if the photons have to hit your eye or your body?

atyy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reticul...ivating_system
http://ntp.neuroscience.wisc.edu/res...waking%20I.pdf
http://ntp.neuroscience.wisc.edu/res...aking%20II.pdf
http://tools.medicine.yale.edu/mccor...gatingMech.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanopsin
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/279/5349/396.abstract (! has this been replicated?)

Monique

Not that I am aware of. There was a time that anti-jetlag devices were sold that were placed in the knee pit, but I'd be interested to know whether they really work. A clue comes from people who are blind, the publications I have seen report that they have free-running circadian periods.

robertjford80

About blind people, I mean photons hitting your closed eyelids

Monique

What do you mean? Light still penetrates the eye when the eyelids are closed.

robertjford80

Blind people have eyes, they just don't work, unless they've been gouged out which is very rare. So what point are you trying to make then with blind people?

Monique

Think for one second. Your question was: "Does anyone know if the photons have to hit your eye or your body?".

If blind people have problems waking up, do you think their body is important or their eyes? Also, do you think it is having eyes that is important or having visually functional eyes?

robertjford80

Here's what I originally read, I decided to track it down. This comes from the Harvard Medical Guide to Sleep

Somehow the first part of the sentence got cut off, so I'll have to look at the original book to see what got cut off but that's at home.