Publication Date:
1986-04-18
Description:
Sex steroid hormones have been thought to alter behaviors in adulthood by changing the activity of neural circuits rather than by inducing major structural changes in these pathways. In a group of androgen-sensitive motoneurons that mediate male copulatory functions, decreases in androgen levels after castration of adult rats produced dramatic structural changes, decreasing both the dendritic length and soma size of these motoneurons. These changes were reversed by androgen replacement. These results imply a surprising degree of synaptic plasticity in adult motoneurons and suggest that normal changes in androgen levels in adulthood are associated with significant alterations in the structure and function of these neurons.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Kurz, E M -- Sengelaub, D R -- Arnold, A P -- HD15021/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/ -- NS07355-02/NS/NINDS NIH HHS/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1986 Apr 18;232(4748):395-8.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3961488" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Androgens/pharmacology/*physiology
;
Animals
;
Castration
;
Dendrites/drug effects/*physiology/ultrastructure
;
Female
;
Ganglia, Spinal/drug effects/physiology
;
Male
;
Motor Neurons/drug effects/*physiology/ultrastructure
;
Rats
;
Rats, Inbred Strains
;
Sexual Behavior, Animal/drug effects/physiology
;
Testosterone/pharmacology
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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