Abstract:

Relations between human’s circadian rhythms and mental health have been attracting much attention for decades. Due to the internal and external influencing factors, circadian rhythm expression differs among individuals. As one of the typical manifestations of rhythmic expression difference, chronotype (including morningness, eveningness and neither-type) has been attracting much more attention since the pioneering work of Horne and Ostberg. Numerous studies have shown that morningness is an important protective factor for mental health, while eveningness a risk factor for triggering potential psychological disorders. In this review, we aim to systematically summarize the influence of chronotype on individuals’ mental and behavioral activities, and to further expound the potential mechanisms behind this effect, which include genetic, psychological and neural mechanisms. Suggestions are put forward for future research, such as focusing on the improvement of study design, increasing casual research, employing advanced neuroscience techniques to explore the mechanisms of how chronotype affects different populations, as well as strengthening intervention research to promote the transformation of experimental results into practical applications.

Key words: Chronotype')">

Chronotype, morningness, eveningness; mental activities, neural and biological mechanisms