Which season were you born in?

It has been proven in a study by Nature Neuroscience that children born in a particular season are more likely to have a dramatic and persistent effect on how their biological clocks function. This therefore could have long-term effects on their personality. The experiment provides the first evidence for seasonal imprinting of biological clocks in mammals. Here professor of Biological Sciences, Douglas McMahon explains that people born in the winter months have a higher risk of a number of neurological disorders including seasonal affective disorder, commonly known as SAD or winter depression, bipolar depression and even schizophrenia.

In the experiment, mice were raised from birth to weaning in artificial winter or summer light cycles. They were placed in constant darkness and their activity patterns were observed. The winter-born mice showed a consistent slowing of their daily activity period, regardless of whether they had been maintained on a winter light cycle, or had been shifted to the summer cycle after weaning. It was observed that the biological clocks and behavior of summer-born mice remained stable while that of the winter-born mice varied widely according to the change in seasons.

This ‘seasonal biology’ of drastic change in behavior of the mice can directly be linked to that of humans as the biological clock regulates mood in humans. Though it is quite striking how closely the neurons of the mice’s brain are similar to humans but it will not be completely wrong to say that the change in season, if not the birth month alone, has a major impact on the increasing psychological disorders in humans nowadays.