NEURAL CONTROL OF THE PREPUBERTAL OVARY

This application, which during the past 2 1/2 years has been
supported by an NSF grant, proposes to continue a series of studies
initiated in 1981 to examine the hypothesis that the developing
ovary, in addition to its hormonal regulation, is controlled by
direct neural influences. We propose to analyze this issue by
utilizing a combination of neuroendocrine, cell biology and
molecular biology approaches, and have selected the following areas
of inquiry: 1) To define, utilizing an immunological approach, the
role of extrinsic noradrenergic nerves in the regulation of
prepubertal ovarian function, 2) To pursue our recent findings that
the immature ovary expresses the genes encoding nerve growth factor
(NGF) and tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), the rate limiting enzyme in
catecholamine biosynthesis, and test the hypothesis that NGF-
supported cells of neural origin present in the ovary express the
TH gene and produce norepinephrine (NE) independent of the presence
of noradrenergic nerves 3) To examine the hypothesis that the
content of ovarian vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) is directly
controlled by the central nervous system independent of the
anterior pituitary, and that VIP is an early neurogenic regulatory
component of ovarian development able to initiate follicular
formation and activate the gene expression of key steroidogenic
enzymes before the immature ovary becomes subjected to gonadotropin
control 4) To define the role of substance P (SP) and neuropeptide
Y (NPY) as modulators of ovarian blood flow and 5) To examine the
presence and functions of calcitonin-gene related peptide (CGRP)
in the ovary.