Central Circadian Control of Female Reproductive Function

Over the past two decades, it has become clear just how much of our physiology is under the control of the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) and the cell-intrinsic molecular clock that ticks with a periodicity of approximately 24 h. The SCN prepares our digestive system for meals, our adrenal axis for the stress of waking up in the morning, and the genes expressed in our muscles when we prepare to exercise. Long before molecular studies of genes such as Clock, Bmal1, and the Per homologs were possible, it was obvious that female reproductive function was under strict circadian control at every level of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, and in the establishment and successful maintenance of pregnancy. This review highlights our current understanding of the role that the SCN plays in regulating female reproductive physiology, with a special emphasis on the advances made possible through the use of circadian mutant mice.

• Publication year

  2014

• Venue

  Frontiers in Endocrinology

• Publication date

  2014-01-22

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3389/fendo.2013.00195PMID 24478756PMCID 3898595
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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