Promising Role of Melatonin as Neuroprotectant in Neurodegenerative Pathology

Abstract

Melatonin treatment showed a potent neuroprotective action in experimental models and in clinical studies. However, the entire disease prevention is not observed with melatonin treatment. Therefore, findings have suggested its future use in combination therapies for neurological diseases. Several studies have showed its free radical scavenging, antioxidant property, antiapoptotic activity, and its action towards enhanced mitochondrial function. It has direct and indirect effects on mitochondrial functions. Neurodegenerative disease pathology includes the impaired mitochondrial functions and apoptotic death of neurons due to energy crisis which could be prevented with antiapoptotic activity of melatonin. However, for the therapeutic use of melatonin, researchers also need to pay attention towards the various intermediary events taking place in apoptotic death of neurons during disease pathology. Age-related neurological diseases include the decreased level of melatonin in neuronal death. Therefore, it is worthwhile to discuss about the different functions of melatonin in aspect of its antioxidative property, its role in the enhancement of mitochondrial function, and its antiapoptotic attributes. This review summarizes the reports to date showing the potent role of melatonin in experimental models and clinical trials and discussing the employment of melatonin as future potent neuroprotective agent.

Exogenous Melatonin for Delirium Prevention: a Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

“…Recent evidence suggests that delirium may cause acute brain damage associated with delirium in both the short-and long-term cognitive functioning [11,42]. Melatonin was regarded to reduce oxidative stress and preserve the fluidity of biological membranes, which might keep the brain away from the neurotoxic damage [43][44][45][46]. However, the exact mechanism via which melatonin exerts its effects in delirium is not well known and needs to be further investigated.…”

Update on melatonin receptors: IUPHAR Review 20

“…Finally, the therapeutic use of melatonin has been proposed and tested in a number of murine models and clinical trials in several neurodegenerative conditions, including AD (Olcese et al ., ; Cardinali et al ., ; Peng et al ., ; Wade et al ., ; Zhang et al ., ), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Weishaupt et al ., ; Zhang et al ., ), PD (Medeiros et al ., ; Naskar et al ., ; Zhang et al ., ) and HD (van Wamelen et al ., ). The therapeutic use of melatonin is usually associated with sleep improvement and better alignment of circadian parameters, and its beneficial effect on neuroprotection and cognitive performance is starting to be recognized (Joshi et al, ; Wade et al, ). Dysfunction or down‐regulation of MT receptors is likely to be part of the primary pathophysiological mechanisms rather than a consequence of advanced neurodegeneration and, thus, prophylactic hormonal replacement and/or early stage intervention strategies to restore MT receptor expression and function might provide the most efficient result.…”

Is dietary melatonin supplementation a viable adjunctive therapy for chronic periodontitis?—A randomized controlled clinical trial

“…Supplementation with exogenous melatonin was found to improve sleep quality and morning alertness in older people with insomnia . Melatonin also possesses a variety of essential properties such as anti‐inflammatory, antioxidant, oncostatic, and neuroprotective actions . It was reported that salivary melatonin levels were significantly reduced in subjects with periodontal disease, suggesting that melatonin can serve as a biomarker for periodontal diagnosis and used as a potential therapeutic in different periodontal diseases .…”