Altered food-anticipatory activity rhythm in Cryptochrome-deficient mice

Restricted feeding to daytime increases daytime activity for 2 days in both wild-type and mutant mice.

• Feeding during the day triggers a change in locomotor activity patterns in nocturnal rodents.
• Gene expression of mPer1 and mPer2 in the liver and cerebral cortex shifts from nocturnal to diurnal with restricted feeding.
• The absence of mCRY proteins does not prevent the increase in daytime activity, indicating that they are not essential for food-entrainable rhythms.
• Mutant mice lacking mCRY proteins show less stable and more gradual increases in activity compared to wild-type mice.
• Results remain consistent under conditions of constant darkness and in mice with lesions in the suprachiasmatic nucleus.

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