Mice sense Moon and Sun

Abstract

Life on earth has always been exposed to the fluctuating Earth's magnetic field, but a magnetic sense affecting behavior has been debated for mammals. We here report that mice, kept under constant laboratory conditions, showed fluctuations in spontaneous behavioral activity with a periodicity of ~14 and ~28 days. This was confirmed in nine cohorts from four facilities on two continents, covering 3 to 41 months. Such oscillations were also maintained in brain Bmal1 knockout mice lacking circadian rhythms, suggesting independence of the circadian clock. The behavioral activity peaked around full and new Moon, and showed a strong alignment with the periodic geomagnetic fluctuations originating in the Earth's iono- and magnetosphere that are modulated by solar rotation and the orbital motion of the Moon. In the ultradian range, this alignment persisted in CRY1/2 knockout mice, suggesting that solar-lunar-driven geomagnetic fluctuations can modulate behavior rhythms independently of CRY1/2.