Neurotrophic Functions In The Anterior Pituitary Of The Adult Rat.

Neurotrophic Functions in the Anterior Pituitary of the Adult Rat.In the last decade, an accumulating body of evidence has proved the existence of large amounts of peptidergic nerve fibers in the anterior pituitary of human, monkey, dog, as well as rat. The close contact between the nerve terminals and gland cells, even forming synapses, strongly implies that the nerve fibers can regulate the secretory activities of the anterior pituitary. It has thus been hypothesized that the mammalian anterior pituitary is under neural-humoral dual regulation.Of great interest is the discovery of a marked increase in GAP-43 immunoreactive nerve fibers in the adrenalectomized rats, implying an active axonal sprouting. Further more, a recent study has demonstrated that it is the ACTH cells in the adrenalectomized anterior pituitary that the spouting nerve fibers are mainly targeting at. Presumably, the sprouting of nerve fibers is due to the release of neurotrophic factor(s) from the target cells. The aim of this study was to...