Watts Alan G
Department of Biological Sciences, The USC College, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-2520, USA.
Brain Res Rev. 2011 Jan 7;66(1-2):174-204. doi: 10.1016/j.brainresrev.2010.07.002. Epub 2010 Jul 13.
With the growing realization in the 1930s that the brain played a crucial role in regulating the secretions of the pituitary gland, neuroendocrinology as we now know it developed from two rather separate directions. One approach relied heavily on morphological techniques to define neurosecretion; a novel, but for many years flawed model that was originally developed to explain the presence of gland-like cells in the diencephalon. During its first 20 years neurosecretion, as a concept, made no significant contribution to our understanding of how the pituitary was controlled. Then, following the identification by Sanford Palay and Wolfgang Bargmann of a continuous neurosecretory pathway from the hypothalamus to the neural lobe, neurosecretion became incorporated into a more broadly based concept of pituitary function, particularly regarding the neural lobe. The second approach integrated structural and functional methods to investigate neural regulation of the pituitary. This work eventually explained how the pituitary was controlled by the brain. It led directly to our understanding of the control of vasopressin and oxytocin release by neuroendocrine terminals in the neural lobe, the neurohumoral control of the pars distalis, and eventually to a detailed description of the neural networks that control pituitary function. As increasingly sophisticated morphological, neurophysiological, and eventually molecular biological techniques were applied to the problem, the original notion of the diencephalic gland and neurosecretion became unsustainable. The gland-nerve cells of the 1930s became the neurosecretory cells of the 1940s and 1950s, and then finally neuroendocrine neurons in the 1960s. From then on neuroendocrinology developed into the more unified discipline we know today. The chronology of these two approaches will be examined here using examples from research that occurred approximately between 1920 and 1965. The goal is not to give a comprehensive history of pituitary function or neuroendocrinology. Instead, the focus will be to compare the rationales and effectiveness of two contrasting experimental approaches: predominantly structural analyses as opposed to more integrated approaches.
随着20世纪30年代人们越来越认识到大脑在调节垂体分泌方面起着关键作用，我们现在所熟知的神经内分泌学从两个相当不同的方向发展而来。一种方法严重依赖形态学技术来定义神经分泌；这是一个新颖但多年来存在缺陷的模型，最初是为了解释间脑中腺样细胞的存在而开发的。在其最初的20年里，神经分泌作为一个概念，对我们理解垂体如何被控制没有做出重大贡献。然后，在桑福德·帕莱和沃尔夫冈·巴格曼确定了一条从下丘脑到神经叶的连续神经分泌途径之后，神经分泌被纳入了一个更广泛的垂体功能概念中，特别是关于神经叶的功能。第二种方法整合了结构和功能方法来研究垂体的神经调节。这项工作最终解释了垂体是如何被大脑控制的。它直接让我们了解了神经叶中神经内分泌末梢对血管加压素和催产素释放的控制、远侧部的神经体液控制，并最终详细描述了控制垂体功能的神经网络。随着越来越复杂的形态学、神经生理学以及最终分子生物学技术被应用于这个问题，间脑腺体和神经分泌的原始概念变得站不住脚了。20世纪30年代的腺神经细胞变成了20世纪40年代和50年代的神经分泌细胞，然后在20世纪60年代最终成为神经内分泌神经元。从那时起，神经内分泌学发展成为我们今天所知的更统一的学科。这里将以大约1920年至1965年期间的研究为例来审视这两种方法的时间顺序。目的不是给出垂体功能或神经内分泌学的全面历史。相反，重点将是比较两种截然不同的实验方法的基本原理和有效性：主要是结构分析与更综合的方法。
