Mice sense Moon and Sun

Authors

Barde, W., Grayver, A., Runker, A. E., Izumo, M., Acosta Rodriguez, V. A., Takahashi, J. S., Kempermann, G.

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.

Preprint server: bioRxiv
The authors list and abstract were imported from bioRxiv on 21 Aug 2026.

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