Biochemistry & Pharmacology: Open Access
Open Access

Abstract

Model Roles of the Hypothalamo-Neurohypophysial System in Neuroscience Study

Dan Hou, Feng Jin, Jiaoyan Li, Jie Lian, Mingyang Liu, Xinna Liu, Yanan Xu, Chaoyu Zhang, Chen Zhao, Shuwei Jia, Runsheng Jiao, Xiaoyu Liu, Xiaoran Wang, Ying Zhang and Yu-Feng Wang

Studies on the Hypothalamo-Neurohypophysial System (HNS) have played a pivotal role in establishing the fundamental principles of neuroscience. Examples include the identification of excitation-secretion coupling, the coexistence of peptides-containing large dense core vesicles with classical neurotransmitters, neuronal-glial interactions, functions associated morphological plasticity, and domain-specific regulation of the secretory activity, etc. Moreover, mechanisms underlying the secretion by the HNS and functions of neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin remain the central topic of the neuroendocrine society, novel findings of which keep substantiating the model role of this system. Nevertheless, challenges are still severe in this study field, such as extrahypothalamic connections of the HNS, scaffolding and guiding roles of glial fibrillary acidic protein in astrocyte plasticity, cellular and molecular processes determining different firing patterns, the position of the HNS in neuroendocrine-immune network, and the nose-hypothalamic route that serves as a key mediator of drug effects on brain activity. Nowadays, translational studies of the HNS also become the prime time of researchers, such as vasopressin involvement in brain injury in ischemic stroke, and therapeutic potentials of oxytocin in lactation failure and its associated health issues. In this paper, we review these challenges in modern neuroscience studies on the HNS.