ShmoopTube

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And here's your shmoop du jour brought to you by the

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suprachiasmatic nucleus not to be confused with the [Mary Poppins holding an umbrella]

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supercalifragilisticexpialidocious nucleus which yeah doesn't exist.. Okay

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here's our question what is the suprachiasmatic nucleus, and here are your potential

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answers...Alright well if you don't know what the schmoop-a-

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suprachiasmatic nucleus is, well we'll give you a hint it has to do with sleep too [Girl sleeping]

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bad you can't really tell that by the name much like the word corn dogs [Girl taking a corn dog for a walk in park]

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wouldn't eat one of those for years okay well anyway let's run down exactly

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what each of our answers is referring to until we find the one we're looking for

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start with B) is the suprachiasmatic nucleus a series of brain waves that signal

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fatigue, well let's see - we have five types of brain waves gamma, beta, alpha,

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theta and delta all naturally produced in varying quantities throughout the day [Examples of varying brain waves]

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and typically signaling different things the short ones that signal drowsiness

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those would be the theta waves, not a suprachiasmatic nucleus so B) is not our

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answer and while we're on the top of the waves let's bring up E) in contrast to [Person surfing on a wave]

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the short theta waves the tall waves that suggest wakefulness are the beta

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wave well between theta waves beta waves and three others there's simply no

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suprachiasmatic waves, so E) is out too what about C) is a suprachiasmatic [Beta wave talking to a sleepy theta wave]

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nucleus a gland that produces melatonin a naturally occurring hormone that helps

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you control your sleep and wake cycles well while melatonin is produced by

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various tissues in the body the primary manufacturer is the pineal gland in the [pineal gland highlighted in the brain]

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brain not the suprachiasmatic nucleus and therefore not our answer moving on

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to D) well actually looks like we've got that one covered as well again the

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pineal gland produces melatonin not the suprachiasmatic nucleus like not at all

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that leaves us with A) is the suprachiasmatic nucleus a grouping of

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cells located in the hypothalamus that controls sleep patterns while the SCN [Man digging crops]

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control sleep patterns and works with environmental clues

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order to determine an appropriate sleep schedule it also controls our circadian [Man with a clock on his forehead ticking]

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rhythm or in other words our body's internal clock... Well, a clock that tells

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us when it makes sense to go to sleep which is really just a suggestion is what

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it is but no need to listen to it we can stay up watching youtube videos till 4am [Man watching videos at 4am]

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and still feel fresh as a daisy by seven right? [Man turns into a zombie and walks away]

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