The relationship between biological rhythm differences and neurological soft signs

Humans can be evaluated under three different types as morning type, evening type, and intermediate type in terms of circadian rhythms, sleep-wakefulness cycles, lifestyles and biological timing, including melatonin, cortisol and body temperature. These individual, biological and behavioral differences that is called as chronotypes can be simply tested with a Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire. This questionnaire was developed to evaluate individuals' circadian rhythms and interpersonal biological rhythm changes. Neurological soft signs are defined as non-localizable neurological abnormalities that are not associated with the disorder in the specific brain region or are believed to be not part of any well-defined neurological syndrome. In this study, it is aimed to reveal the relationship between biological rhythm differences and neurological soft signs. In the study healthy individuals who do not have any neurological or psychiatric disorders and who do not use any medication that affects their physical and neurological status were taken randomly from Afyon Kocatepe University students; demographic data such as age, gender, education of the individuals were determined with the sociodemographic data form. For the study, it was aimed to obtain 50 morning type and 50 evening type individuals in order to provide statistical significance. Volunteers who participated in the study were given the MEQ (Morningness/Eveningness Questionnairee) to determine their biological rhythms. After that SCL-90-R (Symptom Checklist-90-Revised) was applied to evaluate psychopathology. Healthy individuals were briefly examinated by a psychiatric researcher to evaluate the neurological soft signs and these results of the examination were calculated by noting them. As the result of the evaluation; in comparison of neurological soft signs with evening type and morning type groups; there was no statistically significant difference between the morning and evening types in the combining of sensory perceptions, motor coordination, sequencing of motor movements, other tests subgroups and total NSS scores (Neurological Soft Signs). Considering that this is a study done only in the healthy individuals, this result is an expected one. In the two groups that were evaluated with SCL-90-R, it was observed that there were differences in the anger and somatization subgroups in the evening type group. This result was found consistent with similar studies in the literature. Along with that, it was determined that there was a positive relationship between the mean scores of somatization, depression, OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and INT (Interpersonal Sensitivity) subscale scores and only motor symptoms among NSS (Neurological Soft Signs) subscales from SCL-90-R subgroups. There is a need for new studies in healthy individuals to be able to explain this relationship.