In the red box you can see that the graphs look just about the same. One graph measured rhythms without stress and the other graph measured rhythms with stress. Because they are the same, the graphs show that stress does not affect the pituitary gland or sleep/wake cycles significantly. Proving the hypothesis incorrect.

Citation:

Razzoli, M.(2014). Chronic subordination stress phase advances adrenal and anterior pituitary clock gene rhythms. American journal of physiology. Regulatory, integrative and comparative physiology,307(2), R198-R205. doi: 10.1152/ajpregu.00101.2014

 

Goal:

The goal of the study was to show that stress unregulates the Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. This would show that the adrenal clock could be altered by stress.

 

Hypothesis:

The hypothesis of the study is that stress has a distinct impact on HPA axis regulation and other internal processes and effects pituitary clock rhythms. The gene rhythms were measured by assessing energy balances with body weight and food intake.

–       The effect of chronic subordination stress was compared to locomotor activity. There was an increase in activity in the dark period and less activity in the light period in the CCS and control models. This trend rejects the hypothesis because CCS did not alter the activity in mice meaning that stress does not effect rythmic locomotor activity.

 

Findings:

The major findings were that stress triggered a phase shift in a clock gene rhythm. This lead to the idea that there is a link between desynchronized clocks and stress levels.

 

Question:

I would like to ask the author how much would stress affect a high school student’s performance on a test.