| Most cells in the human body contain an intracellular biological clock which times daily (circadian) events. Timekeeping is co-ordinated throughout the body by a group of ~20,000 neurons within a brain region known as the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). The SCN was originally thought to function as a democracy whereby collective electrical and chemical signals from all neurons co-ordinate timekeeping. Our modeling and experimental collaborations suggest a different paradigm. We predict that: 1) signals from many neurons can be temporally silenced and 2) randomness from molecular noise can dominate and/or even play a constructive role in a large coupled network. |
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