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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Jul 1.
Published in final edited form as: Cell Mol Neurobiol. 2012 Apr 10;32(5):709–723. doi: 10.1007/s10571-012-9824-4

Figure 1.

Figure 1

This schematic depicts the predicted model of sex biased signaling. In males the CRF1 receptor associates with β-arrestin2, which sterically hinders Gs association and biases signaling towards β-arrestin2-related pathways such as NFκB, AKT, ERK, and Src. In females, the CRF1 receptor does not associate with β-arrestin2 as well and is more highly coupled to Gs, which signals through cAMP and sometimes ERK. Note that in both males and females CRF activates the receptor, but the signaling events are unique because of sex specific interactions of CRF1 receptors with binding partners. The differential cellular responses can translate to different physiological and behavioral responses to the same stressor and different pathology.