Steroid hormone target cells in the periventricular brain: relationship to peptide hormone producing cells

Steroid hormone concentrating cells in hypothalamic and extrahypothalamic regions are reviewed and the topographic relationship to the periventricular brain and the ventricular recess organs is discussed. Steroid hormone target cells in the brain are considered feedback sites and production sites of polypeptide hormones. The anatomical distribution of estrogen, androgen and progestin target neurons, as defined by autoradiography, is compared with the localization of antibodies to luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone and somatostatin in perikarya of neurons, as characterized by immunocytochemistry. Around the optic recess of the third ventricle in the lamina terminalis and the preoptic nucleus as well as in the periventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus, the steroid hormone target neurons and the assumed polypeptide hormone producing neurons occupy corresponding sites.