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Submitted on March 30, 2006
Accepted on July 7, 2006
Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, West Virginia University Health Sciences Center, Morgantown, WV 26506-9229; Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, West Virginia University Health Sciences Center, Morgantown, WV 26506-9229; Reproductive Sciences Program, Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI 48109-0404; Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 5C1, Canada
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: bgoodman{at}hsc.wvu.edu.
An increase in the response of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) neurons to estrogen negative feedback is responsible for seasonal anestrus in the ewe, but the underlying neural mechanisms remain largely unknown. Neural plasticity may play an important role because the density of synaptic input to GnRH neurons changes with seasons. Moreover, the transition from breeding to anestrous season requires thyroid hormones, which are also required for neuronal development. In the first experiment, we examined whether the decrease in synapses on GnRH neurons is critical for the transition to anestrus by comparing synaptic input in thyroidectomized and thyroid-intact controls, using electron microscopic analysis. Thyroidectomized ewes remained in the breeding season, but the number of synaptic contacts on their GnRH cells was not different from those in thyroid-intact ewes that were anestrus. The next experiment tested whether there was a seasonal change in morphology of the A15 dopaminergic neurons that mediate estrogen negative feedback during anestrus by analyzing synapsin-positive close contacts onto A15 neurons with confocal microscopy. There was a 2-fold increase in these close contacts onto dendrites of A15 neurons in anestrus, and a corresponding increase in the length of A15 dendrites at this time of year. The increase in dendritic length was blocked by thyroidectomy, but this procedure did not significantly affect synaptic input to A15 neurons. These results provide initial evidence that the seasonal change in synapses on GnRH neurons is not sufficient for the transition into anestrus, but that plasticity of the A15 dopaminergic neurons mediating estrogen negative feedback may contribute to this seasonal alteration.
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