Rae Silver - the master circadian clock. Performance Around the Clock episode 41.

About this episode

Professor Rae Silver discusses her groundbreaking research on the brain's master circadian clock and its implications for health and disease.

In this episode of the Performance Around The Clock podcast, recorded at the European Biological Rhythms Society Congress in Lubeck, Germany, we are joined by Professor Rae Silver from Columbia University. Professor Silver is an iconic figure in circadian biology whose foundational research helped characterize the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)—the brain's master circadian clock. We explore Professor Silver’s scientific journey, beginning with her early fascination with the perfectly timed, shared parental behaviors of doves and pigeons. The conversation highlights how this curiosity eventually led to her groundbreaking SCN transplant experiments in hamsters. By transplanting the clock of a "fast-running" donor into a "slow-running" host, her work definitively proved that the SCN controls circadian behavior. We dive into her revolutionary discovery that the SCN communicates its timing not just through neural synapses or "roads," but through "rivers and oceans"—secreting diffusible signals into the cerebrospinal fluid via a specialized portal blood vessel system. The discussion moves toward the profound clinical implications of this fluid…

People in this episode

Host: Dr. Satchin Panda

Guest: Professor Rae Silver

Topics covered

• circadian biology
• suprachiasmatic nucleus
• scientific journey
• clinical implications
• chronotherapy
• lifestyle interventions

Keywords

• circadian clock
• SCN
• neurovascular diseases
• glymphatic system
• chronotherapy
• cancer treatments
• sleep
• waste clearance

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Columbia University

Books & works: Performance Around The Clock

Places: Lubeck, Germany

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