Melatonin plasma pattern is altered in chronic an episodic headaches during sleep and waking.

BRUERA OSVALDO; SANCES GRAZIA; LESTON JORGE; LEVIN GLORIA; CRISTINA SILVANO; MEDINA CARLOS; BARONTINI MARTA; NAPPI GIUSEPPE; FIGUEROLA MARÍA DE LOURDES

Functional Neurology

CIC Edizioni Internazionali

Lugar: Roma; Año: 2007

To look for a relationship between pineal function in chronic migraine (CM),  cluster headache (during active and remission periods), chronic tension type headache (CTTH) patients and controls during NREM sleep, REM sleep and waking, we performed serial sampling of plasma melatonin in the different sleep stages during the first half of the night, in order to avoid chronobiological interferences. Plasma melatonin levels did not show a normal curve neither in the CTTH nor in the CM patients and no significant differences between these groups were found in any of the sleep stages studied. The plasma melatonin values of CH patients in the cluster period were found to be normal in the daytime during the study and no peaks were observed. During the remission period, we obtained a curve with a peak during REM sleep phase. On the basis of the different melatonin secretion patterns observed, it might be hypothesized that the involvement of the hypothalamus in chronic type headaches differs from that showed in episodic type headaches.