Neural Mechanisms of Ovarian Hormone Action & Lordosis; Studies Using C-FOS

虽然性腺激素作用于大脑，影响各种过程，但尚不清楚这些激素是如何作用于大脑产生影响的。最近，原癌基因c-fos的诱导已被用作识别被特定生理刺激激活的单个神经元和大脑区域的工具。本项目拟采用c-fos免疫细胞化学技术检测雌性豚鼠卵巢激素雌激素和孕激素及性行为时脑内哪些核被激活。此外，还将开发c-fos细胞和各种神经肽的双标记技术，以便确定受卵巢激素和性行为激活的细胞中是否含有特定的神经肽。这将使我们进一步了解这些性激素是如何以及在哪里发挥作用的，并将提供初步数据，以形成拨款提案的基础，该提案将检查去甲肾上腺素能系统和卵巢激素是否在特定神经元子集中相互作用，以发挥其促进女性前凸行为的作用。

Although gonadal hormones act on the brain to influence a variety of processes, it is unclear exactly how these hormones act on the brain to produce their effects. Recently, induction of the proto-oncogene c-fos has been used as a tool to identify individual neurons and areas of the brain which are activated by particular physiological stimuli. The present project proposes to adapt the technique of c-fos immunocytochemistry to examine which nuclei in the brain are activated during exposure to the ovarian hormones estrogen and progesterone and during sexual behavior in the female guinea pig. In addition, the techniques to double label cells for c-fos and a variety of neuropeptides will be developed so that it can be ascertained whether particular neuropeptides are contained in the cells which are activated by ovarian hormones and sexual behavior. This will give us further insights into exactly how and where these gonadal hormones may be exerting their effects and will provide the preliminary data to form the basis of a grant proposal which will examine whether the noradrenergic system and ovarian hormones interact at a particular subset of neurons to exert their facilitatory actions on female lordosis behavior.