Hypothalamus and puberty

The effect of a transitory increase in plasma FSH and LH levels during the prepubertal period on puberty has been investigated. Twenty-day-old rats had been bilaterally ovariectomized and 24 hr later they received two ovaries of infantile rats beneath the kidney capsule. These rats exhibited precocious puberty. Animals into which two additional ovaries had been transplanted first and the next day their own ovaries removed showed puberty at the same time as controls. Additional investigations provided evidence that the ovariectomized and ovary implanted rats plasma FSH and LH levels were in the control range four days after implantation. The findings support the assumption that the hypothalamic lesion-induced precocious puberty is due rather to a transitory enhanced release of gonadotropin releasing hormone by the lesion than to the destruction of sex-steroid sensitive structures inhibiting the release of gonadotropic hormones in prepubertal rats.