Abstract: Oxidative stress and mitochondria disorder are the common mechanism of neurodegenerative disease, such as Alzheimer disease and Parkinson disease. Melatonin (MT) level decreases with aging may be one of the reasons of the increased oxidative stress in aging people. So the neuroprotective effect of MT becomes more attractive in recent years. This paper summarized recent studies on the mechanism of melatonin on degenerative disease, including free radical scavenge, anti-apoptosis, neuroprotective effect, neurotrophic effect, anti-amyloid neurotoxicity, regulation of inflammatory reaction and cytoskeletal protein etc.

Key words: melatonin, neurodegenerative disease, Alzheimer disease, Parkinson disease, review