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Sleep Under Preindustrial Conditions: What We Can Learn from It

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Circadian Regulation

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 2482))

Abstract

Human sleep is regulated by light in two fundamental ways: The light-dark (LD) cycle entrains a circadian clock that in turn regulates sleep timing, and light per se can acutely inhibit sleep. Throughout evolution, these sleep regulatory systems became highly sensitive to the effects of light and they can be affected by the relatively low light intensities that are used indoors. Thus, postindustrial living conditions have created built environments that have isolated humans from the natural LD cycle and exposed them to an artificial one that can affect daily sleep timing. Studying indigenous communities that have differential access to electricity, as well as communities living in highly urbanized areas, we and others have shown that human access to artificial light has delayed the daily onset of sleep but has had a smaller effect on its offset, leading to an overall reduction in sleep duration that is pervasive in modern societies. In this chapter we discuss these studies, highlight their main findings, and point to their limitations.

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Acknowledgments

We are thankful to Isabelle Hua and Gideon Dunster for their help with Fig. 1, and to Dr. Ray Sanchez for comments on the original manuscript. Supported by NSF RAPID award #1743364 and Leakey Foundation grant #1266 to HOD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Leandro Casiraghi & Horacio O. de la Iglesia

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  1. Leandro Casiraghi
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  2. Horacio O. de la Iglesia
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Horacio O. de la Iglesia .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Barcelona Institute for Science and Tech, Barcelona, Spain

    Guiomar Solanas

  2. Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), Barcelona, Spain

    Patrick -Simon Welz

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Casiraghi, L., de la Iglesia, H.O. (2022). Sleep Under Preindustrial Conditions: What We Can Learn from It. In: Solanas, G., Welz, P.S. (eds) Circadian Regulation. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2482. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2249-0_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2249-0_1

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  • Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-0716-2248-3

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