General features of melatonin
Melatonin is a hormone, which is thought to play an important role in daily processes of humans’ lives, being secreted by the pineal gland, which is an endocrine gland, located in the middle of the brain. After its discovery the first function (which later gave the name to this hormone) was the ability of this hormone to lighten one’s skin color. This experiment was conducted on frogs, however even nowadays everybody knows that our sunbathing results in suntan due to activity of melatonin. This is a so-called skin-darkening effect of melatonin.
First discoveries of this hormone were done ...