Absence of light-dark entrainment on the sleep-waking cycle in mice with intact visual perception.

The influence of the light-dark schedule (12 h-12 h) on the sleep-waking cycle has been studied in anophthalmic mice: the 'eyeless' ZRDCT/An strain. The complete anophthalmic mice or the heterozygotous mice of the same strain with unilateral or bilateral eyeballs present a circadian organization of the sleep-waking cycle which is not dependent on the light-dark cycle. These results are different from sleep rhythms of C57Br mice recorded under the same experimental conditions. They indicate that the structures responsible for the circadian rhythmicity of sleep exist in all the 'eyeless' ZRDCT/An mice, but are not functionally linked with the visual system even in the mice with unilateral and bilateral eyeballs.