الفهرس 
AcknowledgementOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The pineal gland, so called because of its resemblance to a pine cone, is lultifaceted endocrine organ whose hormonal products affect virtually every system in the body. Embryologically, it is derived from neuroectoderm an outgrowth of the diencephalon. In adults it is attached to the srodorsal aspect of the diencephalon and its proximal portion is »ginated by the pineal recess of the third ventricle (Reiter, 1990). The pineal gland is innervated by sympathetic axons and by axons ig directly from the brain. Postganglionic sympathetic axons arrive in the from perikarya located in the superior cervical ganglia. The cell of the preganglionic fibers that end in the ganglia are located in the :»ediolateral cell column of the upper thoracic cord. The neurons in the lediolateral cell column receive terminals from, among other sources, rya in the hypothalamus, possibly in the paraventricular nuclei; these are connected to the suprachiasmatLc nuclei, which receive a prominent :, via the retLnohypothalamic tract, from the ganglion cells of retinas. igh this complex series of neurons the retinas are functionally related to pineal gland. The sympathetic innervatLon of the pineal is essential for rhythmic metabolism of indoleamines and for the pineal’s endocrine
ms (Reiter, 1990).
The major cellular elements within the pineal gland are the pinealocytes. the pinealocyte, tryptophan, an amino acid taken up from the blood, is zed to a variety of potential hormones. The compound that has been throughly investigated is N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine, or melatonin er, 1990).