Control of the rhesus monkey menstrual cycle: permissive role of hypothalamic gonadotropin-releasing hormone.

In rhesus monkeys with hypothalamic lesions (which appear to abolish the endogenous production of gonadotropin-releasing hormone), normal ovulatory mestrual cycles were reestablished by an unvarying, long-term replacement regimen consisting of one intravenous pulse of synthetic gonadotropic-releasing hormone per hour. This finding is in accord with the hypothesis that the pattern of pituitary gonadotropin secretion throughout the menstrual cycle (basal secretion interrupted, once every 28 days on the average, by a preovulatory surge) is not directed by alterations in hypothalamic gonadotropin-releasing hormone secretion but by the ebb and flow of ovarian estrogens acting directly on the pituitary gland.