Spinal Mechanisms of Avian Reproduction

在了解性类固醇如何作用于神经系统以产生适应性行为和促进生殖成功的生理机能方面，人们正在取得重大进展。阿德金斯-里根博士正在对鸟类进行实验，研究脊椎水平的神经内分泌过程。这项工作将有助于我们了解睾酮代谢物在神经系统雄激素作用中的作用。阿德金斯-里根博士有数据表明这些性类固醇改变了运动神经元的树突。这一发现对成人的神经元可塑性有影响。这项工作很重要，因为越来越多的人认识到，除了对神经系统产生特定的生殖相关影响，如两性异形的产生，性激素可能对神经发育有更普遍的营养作用。神经内分泌学是一个发展非常迅速的领域，它的研究应该会产生许多关于人类行为生理学的新发现。

Great progress is being made on understanding exactly how sex steroids act on the nervous system to yield adaptive behavior and physiology that serves to promote reproductive success. Dr. Adkins-Regan is performing experiments on birds which investigates the spinal level neuroendocrine processes. This work will contribute to our understanding of the role of testosterone metabolites in androgenic actions on the nervous system. Dr. Adkins-Regan has data that show that these sex steroids change the dendritic arborizations of motor neurons. This finding has ramifications for neuronal plasticity in the adult. This work is important because there is increasing recognition that in addition to specific reproduction related effects on the nervous system such as the production of sexual dimorphism, sex hormones may have more general trophic effects on neural development. Neuroendocrinology is a tremendously fast moving field, and its study should yield many new findings regarding the physiology of human behavior.