简介

Hormones are profound modulators of brain structure and function; with influences that span the lifetime of an organism. The muti-faceted and pluripotent neural effects of steroids require that a specific hormone be delivered to the right target at precisely the right time. Members of my laboratory and I are curious as to how this process occurs. We have discovered that estrogen is synthesized in synaptic boutons and in astroglia (a type of non-neuronal cell in the brain). This compartment- and cell-specific hormone provision may be responsible for the effects of estrogen on learning, memory, neural degeneration and perhaps neuroprotection and repair.