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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Jan 1.
Published in final edited form as: Trends Endocrinol Metab. 2011 Oct 4;23(1):9–15. doi: 10.1016/j.tem.2011.09.002

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Proposed neural pathway mediating leptin’s permissive effect on pubertal development. The ventral premammillary nucleus (PMV) expresses a dense collection of leptin receptor long-form (LepRb), sex steroids receptors (ER/estrogen receptor and AR/androgen receptor) and is responsive to environmental cues (odor and probably daylight, in seasonal breeders). Leptin stimulates PMV neurons which express glutamate and nitric oxide (NO). These PMV neurons innervate gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) neurons and neurons in the anteroventral perivetricular nucleus (AVPV, supposedly those expressing Kiss1). This projection facilitates the increase in frequency of GnRH pulses and LH secretion at the onset of puberty.