Biological Rhythm Measurements in Rodents

Rodent studies have been critical to exposing and defining fundamental properties of biological rhythms and underlying timing systems. Studying biological timekeeping in animals is a valid curiosity in itself, and studies in rodents are also often used to model the human condition where human studies cannot be undertaken due to practical or ethical concerns. Translation of rodent models has added substantially to our understanding of human chronobiology and has exposed properties and mechanisms of mammalian biological timekeeping that are more obvious in rodents than humans, driving the chronobiological research frontier forward. In this chapter, we describe how properties of biological rhythms can be accurately described and interrogated in rodent models and how new methods and insights can continue to drive chronobiological discovery science.