Osteoporosis: a neuroskeletal disease?

Osteoporosis is caused by a failure of bone homeostasis, but the precise molecular mechanisms controlling bone homeostasis are largely unknown. Increasing evidence that neurons and neurotransmitters are intimately involved in bone remodelling has shed light on a novel regulatory mechanism for bone homeostasis. Namely, like all other homeostatic functions, bone remodelling is under the control of the hypothalamus, and osteoporosis is considered to be a neuroskeletal disease.