Mary Harrington

Mary Harrington conducts scientific research on circadian clocks. Her lab has discovered that circadian clocks are impacted by aging, but exercise can reverse some of these effects. They are now studying the disruptions of internal cellular clocks due to light at night, and the impact of circadian disruptions on the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Professor Harrington teaches about neuroanatomy, sensory systems, Alzheimer’s disease, and experimental methods in neuroscience. She includes undergraduates in her research laboratory as they make new discoveries, and often these students co-author publications. She is the director of the Neuroscience program.

Selected Publications

(*Smith College undergraduate co-authors)

Skapetze, L, Owino, A, Lo, EH, Arai, K, Merrow, M, Harrington, ME (2023) Rhythms in Barriers and Fluids: Circadian clock regulation in the aging neurovascular unit. Neurobiology of Disease. 10.1016/j.nbd.2023.106120

Raizen, DM, et al., (2023) Beyond the symptom: the biology of fatigue. Sleep, 46:zsad069. Doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsad069.

Klerman, E., et al., (2022) Keeping an eye on circadian time in clinical research and medicine. Clinical and Translational Medicine, 12:e1131. Doi: 10.1002/ctm2.1131

Smith, CB, van der Vinne, V, McCartney, E*,  Stowie, AC, Leise, TL, Martin-Burgos, BM*, Molyneux,  PC, Garbutt, LA, Brodsky, MH, Davidson, AJ, Harrington, ME, Dallmann, R, Weaver, DR (2022) Cell-type specific circadian bioluminescence rhythms recorded in Dbp reporter mice. Journal of Biological Rhythms, 37: 53-77. doi: 10.1177/07487304211069452.

Martin-Burgos, B*, Wang, W*, William, I*, Tir, S*, Mohammad, I, Javed, R*, Smith, S*, Cui, Y*, Arzavala, J*, Mora, D*, Smith, CB, van der Vinne, V, Molyneux, PC, Miller, SC, Weaver, DR, Leise, TL, Harrington, ME (2022) Methods for detecting PER2::LUCIFERASE bioluminescence rhythms in freely moving mice. Journal of Biological Rhythms, 37:78-93. doi: 10.1177/07487304211062829

Tam, SKE, Brown, LA, Wilson, TS, Tir, S*, Pothecary CA, van der Vinne, V, Foster, RG, Vyazovskiy, VV, Bannerman, DM, Harrington, M, Peirson, SN (2021) Dim light in the evening causes coordinated realignment of circadian rhythms, sleep, and short-term memory in mice. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118:e2101591118. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2101591118

Merrow, M, Harrington, ME (2020) A functional context for heterogeneity of the circadian clock in cells. PLOS Biology, 18:e3000927. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000927.