40 Years of Research on the "Reproductive Brain" of Teleost Fishes

Abstract

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the first article ever published on the effects of a brain hypothalamic factor on pituitary gonadotrophin in a teleost fish, the carp [1]. Since this pioneer work, one generation of researchers has written more than 1250 papers dedicated to various aspects of the brain control over the reproductive axis of fish. What we have learnt is that, overall, the neuroendocrine circuits controlling the pituitary gonadotropic activity and the main molecular actors involved in this control are highly conserved in vertebrates, indicating that they are at least 450 million years old and, probably, that many of these actors, if not all, were inherited from invertebrates