Lívia Clemente Motta-Teixeira, Aline Vilar Machado-Nils, Daniella Sabino Battagello, Giovanne Baroni Diniz, Jéssica Andrade-Silva, Sinésio Silva, Raphael Afonso Matos, Fernanda Gaspar do Amaral, Gilberto Fernando Xavier, Jackson Cioni Bittencourt, Russel J Reiter, Paul John Lucassen, Aniko Korosi, José Cipolla-Neto
Maternal melatonin provides photoperiodic information to the fetus and thus influences the regulation and timing of the offspring's internal rhythms and preparation for extra-uterine development. There is clinical evidence that melatonin deprivation of both mother and fetus during pregnancy, and of the neonate during lactation, results in negative long-term health outcomes. As a consequence, we hypothesized that the absence of maternal pineal melatonin might determine abnormal brain programming in the offspring, which would lead to long-lasting implications for behavior and brain function...
September 2018: Hormones and Behavior