Abstract
Evidence is accumulating that the role of gonadal steroids in establishing adult schedules of gonadotropin release relates to the effects of these hormones on neuronal growth. Androgens or estrogens applied to organ cultures of neonatal hypothalamus greatly increase neuritic growth. Facilitation by estrogen of synaptogenesis in the hypophysiotropic area of neonatal rats has also been demonstrated. Early in this critical period of brain development the hypophysiotropic area in the rat is markedly undeveloped and susceptible to the growth promoting influences of gonadal steroids. Steroids hormones could promote the growth of afferents to the receptive hypophysiotropic areas. These afferents could then dominate the receptive space on hypophysiotropic neurons, while in the absence of steroid, all afferents would compete equally for synaptic space. Thus steroid hormones may function in establishing sex specificity by stimulating growth which results in sex specific neuronal circuitry.
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