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The Journal of Neuroscience, February 15, 1999, 19(4):1464-1472
Gonadal Steroids Promote Glial Differentiation and Alter Neuronal
Morphology in the Developing Hypothalamus in a Regionally Specific
Manner
Jessica A.
Mong1,
Edmund
Glaser2, and
Margaret M.
McCarthy2
1 Department of Pharmacology and Experimental
Therapeutics and 2 Department of Physiology and Program in
Neuroscience, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore,
Maryland 21201
One of the more striking sexual dimorphisms in the adult brain is
the synaptic patterning in some hypothalamic nuclei. In the arcuate
nucleus (ARC) males have twice the number of axosomatic and one-half
the number of axodendritic spine synapses as females. The opposite
pattern is observed in the immediately adjacent ventromedial nucleus
(VMN). In both cases, early exposure to testosterone dictates adult
dimorphism, but the exact timing, mechanism, and site of steroid action
remain unknown. Astrocytes also exhibit sexual dimorphisms, and their
role in mediating neuronal morphology is becoming increasingly evident.
Using Golgi-Cox impregnation to examine neuronal morphology and glial
fibrillary acidic protein immunoreactivity (GFAP-IR) to
characterize astrocytic morphology, we compared structural differences
in dendrites and astrocytes from the ARC and VMN in postnatal day 2 rat
pups from four hormonally different groups. Consistent with previous
observations, testosterone exposure induced a rapid and dramatic
stellation response in ARC astrocytes. Coincident with this change in
astrocytic morphology was a 37% reduction in the density of dendritic
spines on ARC neurons. In contrast, astrocytes in the VMN were poorly
differentiated and did not respond to testosterone exposure, nor were
there any changes in neuronal dendrite spine density. However, VMN
neurons exposed to testosterone had almost double the number of
branches compared with that in controls. These data suggest that the
degree of maturation and the differentiation of hypothalamic astrocytes in vivo are correlated with the ability of neurons to
sprout branches or spines in response to steroid hormones and may
underlie regionally specific differences in synaptic patterning.
Key words:
sexual differentiation; arcuate; ventromedial nucleus; estrogen; spine density; developmental synaptic plasticity; GFAP; Golgi-Cox
Copyright © 1999 Society for Neuroscience 0270-6474/99/1941464-09$05.00/0
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