Role of Sex Hormones in Influencing Neurogenesis Through Astrocyte Activity

Neurogenesis is most likely to occur in the hippocampal area of the brain due to its conductive environment. Particularly the subgranular and subventricular zones of the dentate gyrus zone. The process of neurogenesis can be divided into 3 stages. These stages include proliferation, differentiation and maturation. The cells involved in these stages are neural stem cells. These cells can be influenced by a variety of different factors, both intrinsic and extrinsic. Hormones are an intrinsic factor. In particular, sex hormones can influence the proliferation and differentiation stages of neurogenesis. These sex hormones include estrogen and androgens. There are different types of estrogen molecules such as estradiol and other estrogen - like molecules that can play the role of estrogen in influencing a particular neural stem cell, astrocytes. Astrocytes are largely responsible for maintaining a balanced internal environment for the proliferation of cells to take place in order to result in a mature neuron. Through the particular hormone receptors present on astrocytes, its proliferation is influenced positively causing the rate of neurogenesis to increase. The data available is limited to animals such as primates and rats but there is enough evidence to conclude a link between hormones and neurogenesis.