TY - JOUR T1 - Androgens Increase Spine Synapse Density in the CA1 Hippocampal Subfield of Ovariectomized Female Rats JF - The Journal of Neuroscience JO - J. Neurosci. SP - 495 LP - 499 DO - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4516-03.2004 VL - 24 IS - 2 AU - Csaba Leranth AU - Tibor Hajszan AU - Neil J. MacLusky Y1 - 2004/01/14 UR - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/24/2/495.abstract N2 - The effects of androgen on the density of spine synapses on pyramidal neurons in the CA1 area of the hippocampus were studied in ovariectomized (OVX) adult female rats. Treatment of OVX rats with testosterone propionate (TP; 500 μg/d, s.c., 2 d) significantly increased spine synapse density (from 0.661 ± 0.016 spine synapse/μm3 in OVX rats to 1.081 ± 0.018 spine synapse/μm3 after TP treatment). A smaller, but still statistically significant, increase in synapse density (0.955 ± 0.029 spine synapse/μm3) was observed in OVX animals after treatment with the nonaromatizable androgen dihydrotestosterone (DHT; 500 μg/d, s.c., 2 d). Administration of 1 mg of letrozole, a powerful nonsteroidal aromatase inhibitor, 1 hr before the steroid injections almost completely blocked the synaptic response to testosterone, resulting in a mean synapse density (0.723 ± 0.003 spine synapse/μm3) only slightly higher than in OVX control rats. By contrast, the response to DHT was unaffected by letrozole pretreatment. These data suggest that androgen secretion during the female reproductive cycle may contribute to cyclical changes in hippocampal synaptic density. They also indicate that androgen treatment may be as effective as estrogen replacement in reversing the decline in hippocampal CA1 spine synapses that follows loss of ovarian function. Induction of hippocampal synapse formation by androgen is not mediated entirely via intracerebral estrogen biosynthesis, however, because aromatase-independent mechanisms also significantly affect CA1 spine synapse density. ER -