[SOUND] Now what I'd like to do is to talk a little bit about how prolactin is released and the control of that release from the pituitary gland. What I have drawn here is a pituitary gland. Hypothalamus is right above it. So this is the front of the brain, this is the back of the brain, and right below the brain at the base of the brain is this hypothalamus, and right below that is the pituitary gland. You have the posterior part of the pituitary gland and an anterior part of the pituitary gland. The prolactin's being synthesized and secreted from those lactotrophs which are in here. I will just draw one circle to represent those lactotrophs. And secreted into the blood. Now normally, what happens is there are cells up in here, in the hypothalamus, that are bringing axons down and releasing into a specialized, let me get my pink out here, a specialized portal system releasing releasing factors. So, let's take, for example, thyroid, regulation of the thyroid. TRH, thyroid releasing hormone is released from these cells down here, travels down through this portal system this capillary network down to the thyrotrophs in that particular case would be thyrotrophs resulting in s a release of thyroid stimulating hormone. Thyroid stimulating hormone then travels through the blood to the thyroid gland, causing release of the thyroid hormones, T3, T4. That's the normal way we think about things so this is a simulatory thing, and so again what cells up here in the hypothalamus are doing, is they're causing release of this, they're stimulating release of the thyroid stimulating hormone, that thing goes to the other tissues in the body doing whatever that particular hormone's doing. That's true for pretty much all the other hormones coming from the pituitary gland. GnRH for example, gonadotropin-releasing hormone is going to cause a release of LH and FSH, and so on, and so forth. The exception to that is our prolactin that we're talking about here, and that's a little bit different. So let me erase this for a moment and so we don't get confused with our other examples. Okay, what we have is, Several nuclei up here in the hypothalamus. And our nucleus in this particular case we're not talking about the nucleus of a cell, which has a genetic material. We're talking about a cluster of cells. Cluster of cells here, here, and here in the hypothalamus that have a similar function. One of those clusters of cells, sends some axons down here and releases into this portal system instead of a stimulatory factor, inhibitory factor for prolactin called PIF. PIF or prolactin inhibiting factor, prolactin inhibiting factor and the prolactin inhibiting factor is dopamine. Dopamine is a modification of an amino acid. It actually arises from phenylalanine, converted to tyrosine. It goes for several other stuffs before it becomes prolactin inhibiting factor. We know if it's dopamine, it's a neurotransmitter. Effects a variety of kinds of systems. So it's inhibitory, so it stops secretion. I'll put an X there, stops secretion of prolactin from the lactotrophs. In addition, these other ones, these other nuclei send axons down to the posterior pituitary, releasing PIF, same thing, dopamine into another portal system that runs over here and also inhibits prolactin excretion from the lactotrophs. It's kind of a triple whammy. Three difference sets of cells, three different clusters of cells up here in the hypothalamus are inhibiting prolactin secretion. So, whereas, most other hormones coming from this are secreted, or they're stimulated to secrete more, prolactin's actually dampened down. One of the ways they found this out in the early days was, they would take the pituitary out of an animal, they put it in the kidney capsule. So, if you think of the kidney, it's got this really thick capsule, collagenous capsule material on it. Make a slit in that and stick the pituitary underneath of that. Some of those will vascularize. They'll actually survive and form blood vessels and everything, and vascularize. What would they see, because all the other hormones coming from the pituitary drop, because there's no stimulating factor. Prolactin's just being produced like crazy, because there's no longer an inhibiting factor. So, again, it's different from the other ones. Okay, so we see these inhibitory effects. There also is a, we'll call it a prolactin releasing factor. It's a little unclear, it's seems to be coming from these cells as well, or some of these cells, and going across there, that can actually stimulate prolactin release. It's a little bit unclear exactly what that is. Some people have suggested it's oxytocin. Remember, oxytocin is the milk ejection hormone. When an animal is suckled, or you milk the cow, there's a firing off or release of oxytocin. Any time the animal is stimulated like that, milk ejection's occurring, you also are getting a prolactin surge, and so, again, there's evidence that this may be this prolactin releasing factor. So clearly it's a very, very complex way of thinking about or system for controlling prolactin release. [SOUND]