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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2010 Apr 24.
Published in final edited form as: Neurosci Lett. 2009 Mar 3;454(2):148–151. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2009.02.059

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Castration-induced changes in the Spinal Nucleus of the Bulbocavernosus (SNB) system. A) In males subjected to sham surgery at 60–70 days of age, the size of SNB somata increased between 2 and 28 days after surgery. This normal growth was blocked by castration, such that 28 days after surgery the SNB somata of castrates were significantly smaller than those of sham males. There were no significant differences between the groups at either 2 or 14 days post-surgery. B) In the non-androgen responsive motoneurons of the retrodorsolateral nucleus (RDLN), castration had no effect on soma size but age did, with a slight shrinkage in size between 2 and 28 days after surgery in sham males. C) The bulbocavernosus (BC) and levator ani (LA) target muscles innervated by the SNB motoneurons also continued to grow in sham males, an effect presumably dependent on androgens, since castration results in shrinkage of BC/LA weights.