Thirty years of neuroendocrinology: Technological advances pave the way for molecular discovery.

Since the 1950s, the systems level interactions between the hypothalamus, pituitary and end organs such as the adrenal, thyroid and gonads have been well known; however, it is only over the last three decades that advances in molecular biology and information technology have provided a tremendous expansion of knowledge at the molecular level. Neuroendocrinology has benefitted from developments in molecular genetics, epigenetics and epigenomics, and most recently optogenetics and pharmacogenetics. This has enabled a new understanding of gene regulation, transcription, translation and post-translational regulation, which should help direct the development of drugs to treat neuroendocrine-related diseases.

Intra-pituitary administration revisited: development of a novel in vivo approach to investigate the ovine hypophysis.

The anterior pituitary gland regulates physiological processes via the secretion of hormones, which are under the control of factors produced either in the hypothalamus or the pituitary gland itself. Studies investigating how the pituitary gland functions have employed both in vitro and in vivo approaches. Although in vitro analysis has the advantage that it is pituitary specific, the results may be incomplete because the tissue is isolated from other physiological inputs that could affect function under natural conditions. Without vascular input, such studies are inherently of short duration. Conversely, in vivo experiments that rely upon systemic hormone injections require high doses, are non-target specific and the precise hormone concentrations reaching the pituitary gland are difficult to control. Intracerebroventricular hormone infusions are reliant on assumptions that factors are transported to the pituitary gland from the cerebrospinal fluid and are without cerebral effects. Here we describe an innovative method to investigate anterior pituitary function in conscious sheep by direct infusion of peptides into the pituitary tissue surrounding the hypophyseal portal blood vessels. This approach is an adaptation of the hypophyseal portal cannulation technique whereby an indwelling cannula provides direct access to the rostral aspect of the adenohypophysis. Peptide infusions were achieved by insertion of a needle through the implanted cannula such that it penetrated the pituitary. Using this technique, infusion of TRH (17 ng/1 µl/min for up to 6h) induced a sustained rise in systemic prolactin levels that lasted for the duration of the infusion.

NeuroScholar's electronic laboratory notebook and its application to neuroendocrinology.

Scientists continually relate information from the published literature to their current research. The challenge of this essential and time-consuming activity increases as the body of scientific literature continues to grow. In an attempt to lessen the challenge, we have developed an Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN) application. Our ELN functions as a component of another application we have developed, an open-source knowledge management system for the neuroscientific literature called NeuroScholar (http://www. neuroscholar. org/). Scanned notebook pages, images, and data files are entered into the ELN, where they can be annotated, organized, and linked to similarly annotated excerpts from the published literature within Neuroscholar. Associations between these knowledge constructs are created within a dynamic node-and-edge user interface. To produce an interactive, adaptable knowledge base. We demonstrate the ELN's utility by using it to organize data and literature related to our studies of the neuroendocrine hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVH). We also discuss how the ELN could be applied to model other neuroendocrine systems; as an example we look at the role of PVH stressor-responsive neurons in the context of their involvement in the suppression of reproductive function. We present this application to the community as open-source software and invite contributions to its development.