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- Understanding the Brain-Testicular Axis in the Male Reproductive System
Understanding the Brain-Testicular Axis in the Male Reproductive System
Explore the role of the hypothalamus and pituitary gland in regulating male reproductive functions. Learn about gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) and its influence on spermatogenesis.
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Video Transcript
Alright Ninja Nerds, so what we're going to do in this video is we're going to talk about
the brain testicular axis.
Okay, so first off let's go ahead and look at what specific organs are involved here.
So if you look here, what I have zoomed in on right here, this is the hypothalamus.
So the hypothalamus is basically the master endocrine regulator, right?
Because he controls your pituitary gland.
How does it do that?
So if we look here at the hypothalamus, so again, what is this right here?
This is the hypothalamus.
just as it consists of a hypothalamus consists of a bunch of gray matter.
So basically these nuclei that are lodged within what's called the diencephalon of the cerebrum,
right? So it's a component of the diencephalon. The hypothalamus has these specific sets of nuclei
that are responsible for secreting a hormone that's going to regulate a lot of this cycle here.
What is this hormone here called? Well, the hormone that these two nuclei are actually secreting here
called gonadotropin-releasing hormone. GnRH. Okay, so that's GnRH. And what
nuclei are secreting this? This is actually going to be, let's say that this
one over here is the pre-optic nucleus. Okay, so the pre-optic nucleus is
secreting it. And let's say that this green nuclei over here that's secreting
this GnRH is actually called the arcuate nucleus. So these are two nuclei that are
very, very important in being able to secrete gonadotropin releasing hormone.
Now what does that gonadotropin releasing hormone do? You know it actually
moves through this nice little portal system down through here. It's called the
hypofysial portal system. It's a blood vessel connection and look what it's
doing. It circulates down through that and it binds on to these receptors on
these specific cells. What are these cells here called? These cells are called
gonadotropes. So they're called gonadotropes, okay, or troughs. But what this gonadotropes
What gonadotropin releasing hormone does is it binds onto the receptors on these gonadotropes
and triggers the production of two very important hormones.
One of the hormones is called luteinizing hormone and the other hormone that's secreted
is called follicle stimulating hormone.
Okay, so one's luteinizing hormone and the other one's follicle stimulating hormone.
Now before we talk about what these guys do, we have to talk about the interaction that's
actually all the physiological mechanisms that are occurring in this
area. What is this structure that I'm drawing right now? You know in the
testes you have this structure called the seminiferous tubules. The seminiferous
tubules are very, very important. Why? Because that's where spermatogenesis is
occurring. What is spermatogenesis? It's sperm production. Okay, so what I'm doing
is as I'm zooming in on one seminiferous tubule. Now seminiferous tubule is
primarily made up of these very, very important cells. You see these green
cells right here.
These green cells are very important cells and we're going to call these green cells, we're going to call these
Sertoli
cells
or I can call them
Sustenacular cells and sometimes they even call them just nurse cells.
But either way you can pick which one you like the best either way one of these three cells is the name of these
cells that are making up the seminiferous tubule.
Now, really important, in between them, they have these proteins that are linking them
together and keeping them very, very tight to one another or adhering one another.
What are these things called?
