24 - Steroid Action on Neuronal Structure

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the steroid action on the neuronal structure. The role of steroid hormones in regulation of structural changes in the adult brain was slow to be acknowledged. This was probably largely because of presumptions of a fundamental distinction between organizational and activational effects of steroid hormones. Because activational effects were traditionally not thought to include changes in neuronal structure or circuitry, the possibility that steroid hormones influence the morphology of neurons in the adult brain was largely ignored. The chapter presents methods used to discover rapid steroid-induced modifications in neuronal structure and survival in the adult hippocampus. The first application of the Golgi procedure provided an essentially correct morphological description of various neuron types within the cerebellar cortex. Quantitative analysis of Golgi-impregnated tissue has been useful for studying the effects of steroid hormones on neuronal structure. Contrary to the traditional view that hormones influence structure only during development, the results of the studies described above have led to broaden the view of the range of hormone actions on the adult brain to include rapid, reversible structural changes that are detectable at the light microscopic level.