Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: With the onset of puberty blood pressure increases more in men than in women while boys and girls do not show any gender differences in blood pressure. Androgens are known to play an important role in renal tubular epithelial cell growth, hypertrophy and erythropoetin production and may be important determinants of sex-specific differences in blood pressure. However the exact mechanisms are not clear yet.Methods: Male Wistar rats aged 8&#15...

Identification of pure neural androgenic effects is difficult due to 1) regional distribution of androgen receptors (AR) in the CNS; 2) cross-talk between molecular pathways of steroid hormone signalling, and 3) chemical nature and biotransformation of androgens in the CNS. Testosterone is transformed in the CNS by 5α-reductase and aromatase to the pure AR-agonist dihydrotestosterone (DHT) and the estrogen receptor-agonist estradiol, respectively. Decreased sexual activit...