Vitamin A is a necessary factor for sympathetic-independent rhythmic activation of mitogen-activated protein kinase in the rat pineal gland.

The circadian clock in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) controls day-to-day physiology and behavior by sending timing messages to multiple peripheral oscillators. In the pineal gland, a major SCN target, circadian events are believed to be driven exclusively by the rhythmic release of norepinephrine from superior cervical ganglia (SCG) neurons relaying clock messages through a polysynaptic pathway. Here we show in rat an SCN-driven daily rhythm of pineal MAPK activation that is not dependent on the SCG and whose maintenance requires vitamin A as a blood-borne factor. This finding challenges the dogma that SCG-released norepinephrine is an exclusive mediator of SCN-pineal communication and allows the assumption that humoral mechanisms are involved in pineal integration of temporal messages.