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Published on: June 13, 2019
Assessing the Role of Melatonin in the Modulation of Visual Functions in the Mouse
Kenkichi Baba1, Gianluca Tosini2
1Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology, Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA. bkenkichi@msm.edu.
Abstract:
The electroretinogram (ERG) is a noninvasive method to evaluate retinal function. It can be applied to patients to be diagnosed a variety of retinal pathologies such as photoreceptor dystrophy, diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, and glaucoma. ERG has also been a reliable tool to assess retinal functions in animal studies that range from fish to humans. Melatonin is a neurohormone that regulates several retinal functions within the retina, and previous studies have shown that melatonin plays an important role in the modulation of the ERG in humans and other vertebrates. This chapter describes experimental methods to evaluate retinal function using ERG in the mouse and how to assess the contribution of melatonin. An introduction is provided for materials, environmental settings, recording procedures, and analysis necessary for ERG measurements.
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