Endocrine Abstracts

Obesity is a primary healthcare challenge of the 21st century. Medications increasing the bioavailability of the neurotransmitter serotonin (5-hydroxytriptamine; 5-HT) have historically been used for obesity treatment. 5-HT primarily influences appetite via action at the 5-HT2C receptor (5-HT2CR); the clinical significance of which has recently been realized with the launch of the 5-HT2CR agonist lorcaserin for obesity treatment in the USA. Efforts to delineate the underpinnin...

Background: Remote recurrence and metastasis are unusual complications in childhood-onset adamantinomatous craniopharyngioma mainly occurring either along a previous surgical route or by seeding via cerebrospinal fluid.Case description: An 11-year-old female patient initially presented with headache and neck pain as well as nausea over the course of 2 months. A sellar/suprasellar mass (4.0 cm×4.0 cm 5.0 cm) was detected on magnetic resonance imaging...

Drug addiction is a brain psychiatric disorder, whose etiology involves interaction of inherited predispositions and environmental factors. Addictive drugs share the properties of being self-administered by laboratory animals, and of activating the brain reward circuitry, which stems from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) where dopamine (DA) cells are located. These neurons are involved in neural processing contributing to drug addiction and DA plays a crucial role as learning ...

Glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP1) acts as both a peripheral incretin hormone and a central neuropeptide to regulate glucose and energy homeostasis. Within the brain, GLP1 is synthesised by a discrete collection of neurones in the brainstem, and presynaptic release of GLP1 results in binding to postsynaptic GLP1 receptors (GLP1R). The pattern of projections from these GLP1 synthesising neurones in the mouse brain has been described previously1,2. Here we use a novel tra...

Accumulating evidence suggests that ghrelin’s physiological role extends beyond appetite and energy balance to include reward-seeking behaviour both for food (a natural reward) and chemical drugs. The neurochemical circuitry that links ghrelin to reward behavior and the level of the mesolimbic reward system remains unclear. Ghrelin receptors can be found on the ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine neurons. It is not known, however, which dopaminergic projections are rele...

Nutrition is a crucial regulatory component of the reproductive physiology. Conditions of negative energy balance or low energy store often causes a disruption of the neuroendocrine reproductive axis and arrest of sexual maturation. On the other hand, excess energy, as observed in obesity, also negatively impacts the reproductive physiology. For example, high adiposity may induce or aggravate polycystic ovarian syndrome, ovulatory dysfunction and hypothalamic amenorrhea. In ob...

Introduction: While the androgens of testicular origin (representing about 50% of total androgens in men over 50 years) can be completely eliminated by surgical or medical castration with GnRH (gonadotropin-releasing hormone) agonists or antagonists, the antiandrogens currently available as blockers of androgen binding to the androgen receptor (AR), namely bicalutamide (BICA), flutamide (FLU) and nilutamide have too weak affinity to completely neutralize the 50% of androgens m...

Introduction: The Gli-family of zinc-finger transcription factors regulates the Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) signalling pathway, critical for normal CNS development. Gli2 is essential for early pituitary and ventral forebrain development in mice, with mutations described in humans with holoprosencephaly (HPE), isolated hypopituitarism (HP) and cranial/midline facial defects. SHH mutations have been associated with phenotypes including HPE but not HP, despite murine studi...

Introduction: Thyroid storm is a potentially fatal disorder if treatment is not initiated promptly upon assessment at the emergency department (ED).Case: A 20-year-old young woman is referred to the ED with rapid acceleration of complaints of palpitations, fever, diarrhoea and agitation, which had been present since several weeks.On physical examination we saw an uncomfortable, restless woman with a tachycardia of 170/min, and a fe...

The neuroendocrine fraction of GnRH neurons sends axon to the median eminence of the hypothalamus where they release their neurohormone into the pituitary portal vasculature to regulate the reproductive axis. Specialized unciliated ependymal cells named tanycytes, which line the floor of the third ventricle, confer to the median eminence its peculiar cytoarchitecture. Tanycyte cell bodies are located in the ventral border of the third ventricle but they also send processes to ...