Brain Rhythms Across Time Scales: From Chronobioengineering to Clinical Applications

Biological rhythms are ubiquitous in living systems. Cycles and oscillations of different amplitudes and frequencies are not peripheral features: they are central components of command, control, and communication in physiological and behavioral processes. A chronobioengineering approach, combining the principles of biological rhythms with engineering methods and biomedical applications, offers a powerful framework to study, model, and ultimately translate this knowledge into medicine and public health.

In the nervous system, rhythmic activity ranges from infradian and circadian cycles to ultradian rhythms and fast neural oscillations, helping coordinate perception, cognition, endocrine function, behavior, and adaptation to the environment. Yet chronobiology remains only partly integrated into neuroscience, medicine, and public health. Rhythms are too often treated as adjuncts to physiology rather than as core features of how living systems and the brain work. One barrier is the lack of a shared framework linking rhythmic phenomena across frequencies, methods, and levels of analysis. Circadian cycles, ultradian endocrine rhythms, seasonal and reproductive rhythms, and fast neural oscillations are frequently studied as separate domains, even though they interact in ways that fundamentally shape brain function and health.

This Research Topic aims to provide a unifying, chronobioengineering perspective on brain and neural rhythms across time scales. It is organized around one central question: how do rhythms across different time scales interact to organize brain function, behavior, physiology, and health?

We welcome work that advances theoretical models of rhythmicity, investigates mechanisms linking rhythms to physiological and behavioral function, and explores how these insights can inform medicine and public health. By connecting foundational chronobiology with neuroscience, biomedical engineering, and applied health research, this collection seeks to support a more integrated understanding of rhythmic regulation in the brain.

The scope spans basic, translational, and applied research, with particular interest in studies that bridge frequency ranges from infradian and circadian rhythms to ultradian dynamics and fast neural oscillations.

We welcome contributions addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

Models and mechanisms of rhythmicity: mathematical, computational, and conceptual models of rhythm generation, entrainment, synchronization, phase relationships, and cross-frequency coupling. Chronobioengineering frameworks, oscillator theory, coupled networks, and the principles linking rhythms across frequency bands.

Neural oscillations and brain function: roles of oscillatory activity in sensory processing, cognition, memory, attention, and information transfer. Includes EEG, MEG, LFP, theta, alpha, beta, gamma rhythms, and phase-amplitude coupling.

Ultradian rhythms in brain and endocrine systems: neural and hormonal rhythms within the 1–12 hour range and their influence on brain activity and behavior. Includes cortisol pulsatility, arousal cycles, sleep architecture, and hypothalamic-pituitary dynamics.

Circadian rhythms in the brain: daily rhythms in neural function, including the effects of light, sleep-wake timing, clock genes, and environmental cues. Includes circadian disruption, shift work, social jetlag, and environmental light exposure.

Infradian rhythms and long-period cycles: seasonal, reproductive, and other long-period rhythms affecting brain function, behavior, and physiology. Includes menstrual cycle effects, seasonal affective patterns, reproductive rhythms, and annual cycles.

Clinical and public health applications: how chronobioengineering principles can inform prevention, diagnosis, treatment timing, and intervention design. Includes rhythmic brain stimulation, light therapy, gamma stimulation, music-based interventions, chronotherapy, timed medication, and the design of built environments for ageing and neurological conditions including Alzheimer’s disease.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Chronobiology, chronobioengineering, biological rhythms, brain rhythms, neural oscillations, circadian rhythms, ultradian rhythms, infradian rhythms, cross-frequency coupling, entrainment

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.