Abstract
A body of literature suggests that the pineal gland and melatonin in particular regulates a number of physiological and pathological processes in vertebrates. These include the regulation of reproduction in photoperiodic mammals (Reiter, 1980; Tamarkin et al., 1985), the control of circadian rhythms in birds and reptiles (Menaker et al., 1981; Underwood, 1977), the modulation of immune response and anti-stress effects (Maestroni et al., 1986, 1988). The synthesis and secretion of melatonin are dependent upon the activation of pineal ß-adrenergic receptors (Klein, 1979) and are physiologicaly regulated by basic environmental information such as light cycle and temperature. Therefore, pineal and plasma concentrations of melatonin show circadian as well as seasonal periodicity in most species studied so far (for review see Reiter, 1986). Alteration of these rhythms has been reported to be associated with affective and psychosomatic diseases (Lewy et al., 1982; Brown et al., 1985) which, in turn, have been related to an increase of incidence of infections, autoimmune disorders and cancer (Regelson et al., 1987).
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Persengiev, S., Usheva, A., Kanchev, L. (1991). Biochemical Characteristics of Melatonin Receptors in Different Organs and Translation of Hormonal Signal in the Nucleus. In: Fraschini, F., Reiter, R.J. (eds) Role of Melatonin and Pineal Peptides in Neuroimmunomodulation. NATO ASI Series, vol 204. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3756-4_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3756-4_14
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