Endocrine Abstracts

A 41 year old woman presented with a 4 month history of oropharyngeal spasms precipitated by eating, yawning or talking. Such manouvres caused her to fear for her life due to profound choking and 'going blue';as a result she had stopped eating. On direct questioning she complained of circumoral tingling, paraesthesia and carpopedal spasm. She described profuse diarrhoea over the preceding year and had lost 15 kilograms. She was taking no drugs to interfere ith calcium homeosta...

Attainment of mammalian reproductive capacity depends on an increased pulsatile release of gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) from hypothalamus neurons. After reaching the pituitary gland GnRH stimulates the synthesis and release of gonadotropins, which in turn promote gonadal function. The pubertal activation of GnRH secretion is brought about by coordinated changes in transsynaptic and glial-neuronal communication, which involve an increase in neuronal and glial excitator...