Center for Studies in Behavioral Neurobiology/Groupe de Recherche en Neurobiologie Comportementale, Department of Psychology, Concordia University, SP-244, 7141 Sherbrooke St. West, Montreal, QC H4B1R6, Canada.
J Mol Neurosci. 2010 Oct;42(2):168-75. doi: 10.1007/s12031-010-9341-1. Epub 2010 Feb 27.
Glucocorticoids regulate a wide variety of functions, including synaptic plasticity, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activation, conditional fear learning, metabolism, and sensitization to drugs of abuse. The diurnal secretion of glucocorticoids, driven by the mammalian master clock located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus, has been shown to induce and entrain clock gene expression in peripheral tissues. However, little attention has been given to the form and function of centrally located subordinate oscillators, and the synchronizing factors that influence them. Here we review findings that implicate glucocorticoids in the circadian regulation of clock genes in select oscillators in the limbic forebrain and propose mechanisms whereby glucocorticoids can feed back on rhythms downstream from the master clock and possibly alter the functional output of these nuclei.
糖皮质激素调节着广泛的功能，包括突触可塑性、下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺轴激活、条件性恐惧学习、代谢以及对滥用药物的敏感性。由位于下丘脑视交叉上核的哺乳动物主时钟驱动的糖皮质激素的昼夜分泌已被证明可诱导和调整外周组织中时钟基因的表达。然而，人们对位于中枢的从属振荡器的形态和功能以及影响它们的同步因素关注甚少。在这里，我们回顾了糖皮质激素在边缘前脑特定振荡器中时钟基因的昼夜调节中的作用，并提出了糖皮质激素可以反馈给主时钟下游节律的机制，以及可能改变这些核的功能输出的机制。
