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Roles for androgens in mediating the sex differences of neuroendocrine and behavioral stress responses

Estradiol and testosterone are powerful steroid hormones that impact brain function in numerous ways. During development, these hormones can act to program the adult brain in a male or female direction. During adulthood, gonadal steroid hormones can activate or inhibit brain regions to modulate adul...

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Autores principales: Zuloaga, Damian G., Heck, Ashley L., De Guzman, Rose M., Handa, Robert J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7388454/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32727567
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13293-020-00319-2
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author Zuloaga, Damian G.
Heck, Ashley L.
De Guzman, Rose M.
Handa, Robert J.
author_facet Zuloaga, Damian G.
Heck, Ashley L.
De Guzman, Rose M.
Handa, Robert J.
author_sort Zuloaga, Damian G.
collection PubMed
description Estradiol and testosterone are powerful steroid hormones that impact brain function in numerous ways. During development, these hormones can act to program the adult brain in a male or female direction. During adulthood, gonadal steroid hormones can activate or inhibit brain regions to modulate adult functions. Sex differences in behavioral and neuroendocrine (i.e., hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis) responses to stress arise as a result of these organizational and activational actions. The sex differences that are present in the HPA and behavioral responses to stress are particularly important considering their role in maintaining homeostasis. Furthermore, dysregulation of these systems can underlie the sex biases in risk for complex, stress-related diseases that are found in humans. Although many studies have explored the role of estrogen and estrogen receptors in mediating sex differences in stress-related behaviors and HPA function, much less consideration has been given to the role of androgens. While circulating androgens can act by binding and activating androgen receptors, they can also act by metabolism to estrogenic molecules to impact estrogen signaling in the brain and periphery. This review focuses on androgens as an important hormone for modulating the HPA axis and behaviors throughout life and for setting up sex differences in key stress regulatory systems that could impact risk for disease in adulthood. In particular, impacts of androgens on neuropeptide systems known to play key roles in HPA and behavioral responses to stress (corticotropin-releasing factor, vasopressin, and oxytocin) are discussed. A greater knowledge of androgen action in the brain is key to understanding the neurobiology of stress in both sexes.
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spelling pubmed-73884542020-07-31 Roles for androgens in mediating the sex differences of neuroendocrine and behavioral stress responses Zuloaga, Damian G. Heck, Ashley L. De Guzman, Rose M. Handa, Robert J. Biol Sex Differ Review Estradiol and testosterone are powerful steroid hormones that impact brain function in numerous ways. During development, these hormones can act to program the adult brain in a male or female direction. During adulthood, gonadal steroid hormones can activate or inhibit brain regions to modulate adult functions. Sex differences in behavioral and neuroendocrine (i.e., hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis) responses to stress arise as a result of these organizational and activational actions. The sex differences that are present in the HPA and behavioral responses to stress are particularly important considering their role in maintaining homeostasis. Furthermore, dysregulation of these systems can underlie the sex biases in risk for complex, stress-related diseases that are found in humans. Although many studies have explored the role of estrogen and estrogen receptors in mediating sex differences in stress-related behaviors and HPA function, much less consideration has been given to the role of androgens. While circulating androgens can act by binding and activating androgen receptors, they can also act by metabolism to estrogenic molecules to impact estrogen signaling in the brain and periphery. This review focuses on androgens as an important hormone for modulating the HPA axis and behaviors throughout life and for setting up sex differences in key stress regulatory systems that could impact risk for disease in adulthood. In particular, impacts of androgens on neuropeptide systems known to play key roles in HPA and behavioral responses to stress (corticotropin-releasing factor, vasopressin, and oxytocin) are discussed. A greater knowledge of androgen action in the brain is key to understanding the neurobiology of stress in both sexes. BioMed Central 2020-07-29 /pmc/articles/PMC7388454/ /pubmed/32727567 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13293-020-00319-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Review
Zuloaga, Damian G.
Heck, Ashley L.
De Guzman, Rose M.
Handa, Robert J.
Roles for androgens in mediating the sex differences of neuroendocrine and behavioral stress responses
title Roles for androgens in mediating the sex differences of neuroendocrine and behavioral stress responses
title_full Roles for androgens in mediating the sex differences of neuroendocrine and behavioral stress responses
title_fullStr Roles for androgens in mediating the sex differences of neuroendocrine and behavioral stress responses
title_full_unstemmed Roles for androgens in mediating the sex differences of neuroendocrine and behavioral stress responses
title_short Roles for androgens in mediating the sex differences of neuroendocrine and behavioral stress responses
title_sort roles for androgens in mediating the sex differences of neuroendocrine and behavioral stress responses
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7388454/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32727567
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13293-020-00319-2
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