Circadian Rhythm as a Phase-locked Loop

Authors:	Kimura Hidenori, RIKEN, Japan Nishigaki Yoshimichi, The University of Tokyo, Japan
Topic:	8.4 Control of Biotechnological Processes
Session:	Systems Biology
Keywords:	Biocontrol, Biocybernetics, Phase-locked loop, Oscillation, Synchronization

Abstract

The circadian rhythm is a sort of biological clock that works in the cell level synchronized with a day rhythm of light condition. It is ubiquitous in living organisms. This paper tries to establish an analogy of circadian rhythm with the Phase Locked Loop (PLL) which is widely used in various fields of engineering. Though the analogy is not complete, the PLL framework is shown to give a nice new paradigm to discuss the intrinsic structure of the circadian rhythm.