{"id":233188,"date":"2026-03-12T23:26:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T04:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/immune-cells-in-the-brain-may-tune-fertility-hormones-animal-study-suggests"},"modified":"2026-03-12T23:26:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T04:26:20","slug":"immune-cells-in-the-brain-may-tune-fertility-hormones-animal-study-suggests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/immune-cells-in-the-brain-may-tune-fertility-hormones-animal-study-suggests","title":{"rendered":"Immune cells in the brain may tune fertility hormones, animal study suggests"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/immune-cells-in-the-brain-may-tune-fertility-hormones-animal-study-suggests.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The kick-off signal for puberty begins in the brain. Specifically, in the hypothalamus, where specific neurons release a hormone that activates the hypophysis, at the base of the skull, which then releases other hormones to start gonad\u2014ovaries or testicles\u2014maturation. This mechanism leading to a fertile organism is the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis.<\/p>\n<p>A study by Spain\u2019s National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) has discovered in animal models that two previously unsuspected elements are also involved in this hormone regulating system: microglia\u2014defensive cells of the nervous system\u2014and the protein RANK, which contributes to bone remodeling and is essential in the functioning of the mammary glands.<\/p>\n<p>The work is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/science.aeb6999\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the journal <i>Science<\/i>. It is led by Eva Gonz\u00e1lez-Su\u00e1rez, head of the CNIO Transformation and Metastasis Group, who discovered in 2010 the key role played by RANK in the development of breast cancer. The first author is Alejandro Collado, a researcher from the same group and co-corresponding author.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The kick-off signal for puberty begins in the brain. Specifically, in the hypothalamus, where specific neurons release a hormone that activates the hypophysis, at the base of the skull, which then releases other hormones to start gonad\u2014ovaries or testicles\u2014maturation. This mechanism leading to a fertile organism is the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis. A study by Spain\u2019s [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}