Studio sui livelli di melatonina nei pazienti affetti da epilessia

L'obiettivo principale dello studio era quello di creare un modello matematico in grado di descrivere la secrezione circadiana di melatonina ed effettuare un confronto delle secrezioni di melatonina in bambini con e senza epilessia.
L'analisi di correlazione effettuata per i gruppi di bambini con e senza epilessia ha evidenziato che i pazienti con epilessia sono caratterizzati da una maggiore sfasamento del rilascio di melatonina.

Studio in inglese

Melatonin in Epilepsy: A New Mathematical Model of Diurnal Secretion.

Int J Endocrinol. 2016;2016:3861461
Authors: Paprocka J, Kijonka M, Pęcka M, Sokół M

Abstract
Purpose. The main objective of the study was to create a mathematical model that describes the melatonin circadian secretion and, then the functionality of the model was tested by a comparison of the melatonin secretions in children with and without epilepsy. Material and Methods. The patients were divided into the epilepsy group (EG, n = 52) and the comparison group (CG, n = 30). The melatonin level was assessed by a radioimmunoassay method. The diurnal melatonin secretion was described using a nonlinear least squares method. Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was chosen to estimate the dependence of the acquired data. The model reproduces blood concentration profiles and its parameters were statistically analyzed using the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test and logistic regression. Results. The correlation analysis performed for the EG and CG groups showed moderate correlations between age and the melatonin secretion model parameters. Patients with epilepsy are characterized by an increased phase shift of melatonin release.

PMID: 27478439 [PubMed]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27478439?dopt=Abstract