Psychiatria pre prax 3/2008

CHRONOBIOLOGICAL COMPONENTS OF MENTAL DISORDERS

The chronological coordination of functions of human organism and the environment and, the mutual synchronization of the activity of inner physical systems, organs, individual parts of organs, cells and even genes, started to be in the forefront of the scientific research in the whole world. It is not a new heuristic sphere at all. It was elaborated in the different way with healers in many high-developed cultures in the past, mostly probably in China at the beginning of our era. The contemporary term chronobiology involves those chronological relationships.Chronobiology became step by step the well-recognized scientific branch that interferes with all medical disciplines including psychiatry.

Keywords: mental disorders, chronobiology, biological rhythms, chronobiotics, chronotherapy