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The third paragraph under "Functions" starts with, 'It also contains a substance which if injected intravenously causes fall of blood-pressure.' Is this supposed to refer to the correlation between blood pressure and Melatonin production?

The description in "Functions" is vague. Melatonin usally increases potassium channel conductance thereby slowing down the heart rate and possibly relaxing the endothelium (haven't checked this). moosattack

There is no reputable evidence that fluoride has any influence on humman sexual maturity. In fact, the contrary exists. So, let's just drop this line in the article until peer-reviewed data is available.

The third paragraph of the lede addresses two issues: that the pineal body is an atrophied vestige of something, and then the part about Decartes. Since these two things have nothing in common with each other, they should at least be separate paragraphs. Furthermore, the first part looks about 50-100 years out of date. "the pineal gland represents a kind of atrophied photoreceptor" "linked to a vestigial organ, known as the parietal eye." In many vertebrates the parietal eye is fully functional. It is generally a non-image-forming light-detecting organ used to regulate circadian rhythm. It evolved long after the eye. Apparently warm-blooded animals don't need one. At one time scientists threw around words like "atrophied" and "vestigial" whenever they encountered something they didn't understand. In other words, it was the default assumption. Nowadays using such terminology is considered an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence. Zyxwv99 (talk) 02:16, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In pop culture? Yeah, sounds odd, but the Pineal Gland does play a decent role in the "religion" Discordianism. Here is but one reference - Google provides forth with more: http://discordia.wikia.com/wiki/Pineal_gland I'll leave it to others to discuss notability. However, this may be the closest this topic comes to non-academic fame. Reverend Loki (talk) 22:04, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

1. Just read the article and was very shocked not to find at least a small reference to Discordianism.... "consult your Pineal Gland" being probably its most popular aphorism... 2A02:C7D:EDF:B500:71CA:F28E:9739:C079 (talk) 19:48, 16 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In our long article Discordianism, the pineal isn't mentioned. Perhaps, one should start there. The first paragraph includes the sentence "...Discordianism was founded as a parody religion." This is modified later. If the pineal is a "thing" there, it seems that it ought to be explained there and then perhaps referenced here. (I haven't studied the archives here or there. The topic may have been covered earlier.) --Hordaland (talk) 19:16, 17 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Reverend Loki: It seems that there is also a large amount of pseudoscientific literature that describes attempts to "decalcify" the pineal gland. Jarble (talk) 18:08, 29 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The third sentence in the lede states "The shape and size of the gland make it resemble a pine nut, inferring its name." However, under the heading "Structure", the second sentence states "It takes its name from its pine-cone shape." Both assertions are properly sourced, but those sources differ. Of course, a pine nut and a pine-cone are both prolate spheroids, but pine-cones exhibit far more variety in their shapes than do pine nuts. Anyone have any thoughts about how to resolve this contradiction? Bricology (talk) 08:20, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Bricology -- thanks for pointing this out. The one book referring to the gland shape as a pine nut must have been in error (pine nut shape here is nothing like the shape of the pineal gland), and I have replaced it with an etymology source and subsection. All references I consulted refer to the shape as a pine cone, and the anatomy of the pineal clearly shows its shape as a cone. --Zefr (talk) 17:04, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]