title: Melatonin in Epilepsy: A New Mathematical Model of Diurnal Secretion.
abstract: Purpose. The main objective of the study was to create a mathematical model that describes the melatonin circadian secretion and, then the functionality of the model was tested by a comparison of the melatonin secretions in children with and without epilepsy. Material and Methods. The patients were divided into the epilepsy group (EG, n = 52) and the comparison group (CG, n = 30). The melatonin level was assessed by a radioimmunoassay method. The diurnal melatonin secretion was described using a nonlinear least squares method. Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was chosen to estimate the dependence of the acquired data. The model reproduces blood concentration profiles and its parameters were statistically analyzed using the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test and logistic regression. Results. The correlation analysis performed for the EG and CG groups showed moderate correlations between age and the melatonin secretion model parameters. Patients with epilepsy are characterized by an increased phase shift of melatonin release.
authors.affiliation: Department of Paediatrics and Developmental Age Neurology, School of Medicine in Katowice, Medical University of Silesia, Ulica Medyków 16, 40-752 Katowice, Poland.
authors.forename: Justyna
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-1794-8546
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Paprocka
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Physics, Maria Skłodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Center and Institute of Oncology, Gliwice Branch, Ulica Wybrzeże Armii Krajowej 15, 44-101 Gliwice, Poland.
authors.forename: Marek
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kijonka
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Automatic Control, Electronics and Computer Science Biomedical Engineering, Silesian University of Technology, Ulica Akademicka 2A, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland.
authors.forename: Marcin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pęcka
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Physics, Maria Skłodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Center and Institute of Oncology, Gliwice Branch, Ulica Wybrzeże Armii Krajowej 15, 44-101 Gliwice, Poland.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sokół