Biological integrators are found in many systems. For
example, there are very long-time constant caloric integrators
important in whole animal energy homeostasis, multi-day
integrators that "remember" how much sleep
an organism has had, and much shorter time constant
integrators that are though to be important in processes
such as working memory.
The John
Lisman laboratory is actively working on models
of biological integrators, with the goal of determining
the underlying principles that may govern their behavior,
and therefore be general to many biological integrators.
The mammalian sleep integrator and its effects on plasticity
are being studied collaboratively by Gina
Turrigiano, Sacha
Nelson, Donald
Katz and Susan
Birren.
At the molecular level, the Michael
Rosbash and Leslie
Griffith labs are exploring the genetic and cellular
structure of the biological inegrator that determines
sleep patterns in Drosophila.
Although biological integrators are likely to exist
as a function of basic molecular and biochemical signaling
pathways in all biological systems, they have received
less formal attention than oscillators. Therefore, their
study is particularly timely.
