This title includes a number of Open Access chapters.

Providing a nuanced study of the connections between sleep, circadian rhythms, and metabolis, this informative book examines how circadian actions affect the liver and adipose tissue, the brain, and metabolism. This important book introduces the reader to circadian rhythms in the body and the external cues that set them, discusses on a molecular and organ level how disrupting these clocks results in metabolic and sleep disorders, and looks at the clinical applications of circadian rhythms, with a focus on sleep.

The book covers a variety of important research in the field, including:

• The power of computational biology to uncover new nodes in the network of circadian rhythms

• Circadian rhythms as they relates to obesity

• How late-night shift conditions impair the body’s ability to keep time and promote metabolic diseases and how this can be mitigated by strategic planning of feeding times

• The relationship between the suprachiasmatic nuclei and orexin neurons, demonstrating the elegant interplay between our biological clocks and wakefulness

• How sleep disorders can result from irregular circadian rhythms and potential ways to diagnose this in individuals

• How sleeping behaviors can disturb the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and the repercussions of this disruption on female reproduction

• How disruption of sleep can be clinically beneficial for depressed patients

• How mental state is influenced by circadian rhythm