SCN desynchronization measured in vitro

From Ohta et al., (e-pub ahead of print), Nature Neuroscience, published online Jan. 30, 2005:

"Our findings resolve a basic question regarding the mammalian brain biological clock: at what level of organization is rhythmicity disrupted by external stimuli? Clearly, constant light disrupts circadian behavioral rhythms by disruptin the cellular organization of the SCN clock. The asynchronous but robust individual cellular rhythms in the SCN from arrhythmic LL mice indicate that disruption of behavioral and SCN tissue-level rhythmicity is not the result of stopping the core molecular clock mechanism of individual neuronal oscillators."

I think that says it all!