Abstract
Twenty-five-day-old rats maintained in constant darkness since birth and born from mothers kept in the dark since the 14th day of pregnancy showed a circadian rhythm of α-amylase content in parotid glands, which may be explained by a mechanism of maternal co-ordination. Rats in the same conditions, except that their mothers had been submitted to bilateral excision of the superior cervical ganglia 30 days before mating, did not show diurnal variations of α-amylase activity in the parotid glands. When ganglionectomized mothers were treated with a daily dose of melatonin (1 mg/kg) from the 14th day of gestation up to the 10th day of lactation, their litters showed significant diurnal variations of amylase in the parotid glands, suggesting a role of the maternal pineal gland in the maternal-fetal and/or maternal-neonatal transfer of photoperiodic information.
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