Your Sex Hormones may Reshape Your Brain Circuitry

Influence of early-life hormonal surges in shaping the brain circuitry has been discovered by a study at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, published in the journal Nature.

The female sex hormone called estrogen (generated through a surge of testosterone in males) is known to control hundreds of genes in the brain. Generally, these changes occur when the activated estrogen receptors sit directly on a cell's DNA to turn genes on or off.

‘Sex hormones are found to play a crucial role in shaping an animal�s behavior by influencing its early brain circuitry. ’

Moreover, fluctuating hormonal levels are found to cause shifts in mood, energy balance, and behavior throughout life, in accordance with sculpting other neural circuitry changes.

Influence of Sex Hormones on Brain

The present study mapped the latching of the estrogen receptors onto DNA inside mouse brain cells by focusing on a brain region called the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST - larger in males than females).

It was found that estrogen sets up a range of physical differences in the brains of males and females during development (including mating, parenting, and aggression) with a surge of testosterone (that generates estrogen) in male mice, soon after birth.

Although estrogen itself remains in the brain for only a few hours, it seems that the hormone-controlled genes remain active for weeks.

"There's this critical period when the brain is developing and wiring up that it has to get this input in order to make these permanent changes in the brain wiring. This is a transient surge, but it seems to have extremely long-lasting effects on brain development," says the study team.

The team further plans to explore the genetic mechanisms that drive the diverse effects of hormones on brain development, behavior, and disease.

Source: Medindia