Question

For hormones, be able to discuss neuroendocrine vs endocrine and provide examples.

Answer 1

Neuroendocrine systems can be defined as the sets of neurons, glands and non-endocrine tissues, and the neurochemicals, hormones, and humoral signals they produce and receive, that function in an integrated manner to collectively regulate a physiological or behavioral state.

The neuroendocrine system is the mechanism by which the hypothalamus maintains homeostasis, regulating reproduction, metabolism, eating and drinking behaviour, energy utilization, osmolarity and blood pressure.

The central neuroendocrine systems serve as an interface between the brain and many of the peripheral endocrine systems. This chapter discusses the hypothalamic control of anterior pituitary systems regulating stress, basal metabolism, growth, reproduction, and lactation. Each of these systems involves one or more hypothalamic releasing or inhibiting hormones, released from hypothalamic neurons that terminate in the portal capillary vasculature that projects from the median eminence at the base of the hypothalamus to the anterior pituitary gland. There, the hypothalamic hormones act upon subsets of anterior pituitary cells to regulate pituitary hormone release and downstream physiological functions. Other hypothalamic neuroendocrine cells control water/salt balance, and lactation/parturition, through the release of vasopressin and oxytocin from nerve terminals that arise in hypothalamus and project to the posterior pituitary gland. Together, these hypothalamic neuroendocrine functions enable the central nervous system to respond rapidly to internal or external environmental change, and to maintain a response through endocrine hormonal transducers.

The endocrine system is a group of glands and other structures that release internal secretions called hormones into the circulatory system.

Endocrine organs are richly vascularized ductless organs that produce hormones. The epithelial cells of the organ secrete their hormone product directly into the bloodstream where, upon binding with specific receptors in target organs, cellular functions are affected. The endocrine systemincludes not only the endocrine glands (pineal, pituitary, thyroid, parathyroid, and adrenal) but also single cells and small clusters of cells in the thorax and abdomen known as paraganglia.