THE ROLE OF ENDOGENOUS

PACEMAKERS
A01
The suprachiasmatic nucleus
EPs are biological clocks generated within organisms
The SCN is a tiny cluster or nerve cells which lie in the
hypothalamus. It is located above where the optic nerve
of each eye crosses over. The SCN obtains information
about light from the eye via the optic nerve. This happens
even when our eyes are shut, because light penetrates
the eyelids. This produces a circadian rhythm which is
reset by light entering the eyes. If the pacemaker is
running slow, EZs i.e. light shifts it into alignment
keeping it synchronised with the outside world. The SCN is
divided into a ventral and dorsal SCN with the ventral SCN
easily reset by external cues and the dorsal SCN is less
aff ected by EZs and more resistant to being reset

The pineal gland and melatonin

The SCN receives signals from light and sends signals to
the pineal gland which regulates the production of
melatonin which brings on sleep by inhibiting the brain
mechanisms which promote wakefulness. Light inhibits
melatonin production with the SCN and this demonstrates
how EPs interact with EZs

A02
Morgan et al bred mutant hamsters with a circadian
rhythm of 20 hours instead of 24, and then transplanted
their SCNs into normal hamsters. The normal hamsters
then displayed the mutant rhythms. This demonstrated
the role of the SCN as an internal body clock. However,
the study was based on animals and the anatomy of a
hamster is very diff erent to that of a human therefore the
fi ndings may lack external validity to humans. This
research has a huge benefi ts for helping us understand
the role of the SCN, however, some may argue that animal

research has ethical issues as the animals may have

experienced harm and suff ering just for research
purposes, but some may say it is more ethical than using
human participants.
Siff re was a case study which demonstrated the existence
of EPs where he stayed in a cave for 6 months in
isolation. His SWS settled to 25 to 30 hours, this
highlighted the role of EPs in circadian rhythms and also
the role of EZs in keeping it accurately synchronised.
However, this is a single case study and individual
diff erences and confounding variables e.g. age may have
infl uenced his EP. This was found when he repeated the
experiment when he was older and found that his internal
clock was even slower. Therefore research into biological
clocks may lack external validity to a wider population.
Also, the study lacked ecological validity because in the
cave he was hooked to equipment which is not indicative
of real world settings.
Folkard et al found evidence to support that there are
other pacemakers throughout the body and the SCN may
not be the main one. They studied a young woman who
spent 25 days in a cave. They found that her temperature
rhythm was 24 hours whilst her sleep rhythm was 30
hours. This demonstrated that EPs can become
desynchronised when controlling biological rhythms. The
issue here is that this was a single case study and
fi ndings may lack external validity and generalisability to
a wider population. Another limitation is that there may
be gender bias as females have diff erent hormones to
males therefore this may not be generalisable to males.
Yamazaki found that isolated lungs, livers and other tissue
had a circadian rhythm which still persisted suggesting
that body parts may have their own EP and are not reliant
on the SCN. Such research can be said to be a
reductionist as it suggests that the SCN is the main
endogenous pacemaker when research suggests there are
various biological clocks throughout the body. This
oversimplifi es the way the human body works as in truth
it is more complex and we cannot fully understand what
these are.

 This biological approach can be argued to be

deterministic as it ignores the role of free will to override
these biological clocks, as we are not controlled by these
biological programming and we can override them if we
choose to.
Nurture also plays a strong role as the environment
interacts with the internal body clock and the two appear
just as important as eachother. As the EP keeps the
biological rhythm whilst the EZs keep them fully
synchronised.