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In this volume, current knowledge on light as a regulator of biological rhythms is considered from both basic science and clinical perspectives. Chapters by leading experts cover the whole range of biological rhythms, from infradian and circadian to the longer ultradian rhythms, in a wide variety of mammalian species. The chapters on humans provide a basis on which to establish mechanisms for mediating the therapeutic and physiologically beneficial effects of light as a regulator of rhythms in health and disease.
Melatonin: Biosynthesis, Physiological Effects, and Clinical Applications provides a thorough review of recent advances in major areas of melatonin research. The book is arranged in a logical sequence, beginning with the history of melatonin and then proceeding to cover its biochemistry and secretion, physiological effects, and clinical significance. New findings and current concepts are emphasized, and a significant amount of previously unpublished data are included. The book will be an important reference for neurobiologists, cell biologists, ophthalmologists, endocrinologists, neuroendocrinologists, reproductive biologists, psychiatrists, and other researchers and clinicians interested in melatonin.
In three volumes, historian Jole Shackelford delineates the history of the study of biological rhythms—now widely known as chronobiology—from antiquity into the twentieth century. Perhaps the most well-known biological rhythm is the circadian rhythm, tied to the cycles of day and night and often referred to as the “body clock.” But there are many other biological rhythms, and although scientists and the natural philosophers who preceded them have long known about them, only in the past thirty years have a handful of pioneering scientists begun to study such rhythms in plants and animals seriously. Tracing the intellectual and institutional development of biological rhythm studies, Sh...
The pineal gland has been a subject of interest and speculation for more than 2000 years. Greek anatomists were impressed by the ob servation that the pineal gland is an unpaired structure and they believed that it regulated the flow of thoughts. The philosopher Descartes proposed an important role for this organ in brain function. At the beginning of the 20th century experiments by several investi gators indicated that the pineal influenced sexual function and skin pigmentation and was also responsive to light signals. With the iso lation of melatonin from bovine pineal glands by Lerner and cowork ers in 1958 the modern era of pineal research was initiated. Within a few years the pathway fo...
This volume provides the reader with an overview of an intriguing and interdisciplinary field of research. For the first time the mammalian pineal gland, its mode of action and its physiological effects are discussed in a comprehensive, single-authored work.