A model-based prediction of circadian system responses to a heat load pulse

The authors developed a thermoregulatory model of sleep control based on the hypothesis that non rapid eye movement sleep participates in the homeostatic thermal regulation. This model successfully reproduced several qualitative features of human sleep-wake cycles. Here, in order to provide an experimentally verifiable prediction concerning behavior of the human circadian system, the model response to a heat load pulse was simulated. As a result, the strong phase-dependent responses to the heat load pulse was predicted by the model. This is an intriguing result which deserves to be studied experimentally.