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(Exogenous) melatonin is administered at night for treatment of circadian rhythm disorders, but melatonin taken during the day is linked with depression.

I would like to know if high blood levels of (endogenous) melatonin (at a steady state, throughout the day) might be linked with mood or sleep disorders (or have any effect at all), or if the body's response to melatonin adjusts accordingly.

I think the answer to this SE question is related, but I can't find the source using a reverse image search.

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  • $\begingroup$ This question isn't fully answered - I found nothing on circadian rhythm disorders. $\endgroup$
    – blep
    Mar 21, 2013 at 20:22

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I found a recent PLoS article that said that none of hypochondriasis, depression, hysteria, psychopathic deviate, masculinity-femininity, psychasthenia, schizophrenia, or social intraversion (on the MMPI-2) "were associated with any melatonin parameter."

However, it does appear that "increases scores of Hypomania and Paranoia were associated with a shorter DLMO-DLMOff interval" (duration of melatonin production).

The only thing that concerns me are the significance and the effect size of the latter two results. I can't tell whether they corrected for multiple comparisons or not.

Reference: Burgess HJ, Fogg LF (2008) Individual Differences in the Amount and Timing of Salivary Melatonin Secretion. PLoS ONE 3(8): e3055. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003055

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