Distribution and abundance of glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid receptors throughout the brain of the great tit Parus major

The glucocorticoid stress response, regulated by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, enables individuals to cope with stressors through transcriptional effects in cells expressing the appropriate receptors. The two receptors that bind glucocorticoids—the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) and glucocorticoid receptor (GR)—are present in a variety of vertebrate tissues, but their expression in the brain is especially important. Neural receptor patterns have the potential to integrate multiple behavioral and physiological traits simultaneously, including self-regulation of glucocorticoid secretion through negative feedback processes. In the present work, we quantified the expression of GR and MR mRNA throughout the brain of a female great tit (Parus major), creating a distribution map encompassing 48 regions. This map, the first of its kind for P. major, demonstrated a widespread but not ubiquitous distribution of both receptor types. In the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothala...

糖皮质激素应激反应由下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺（hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal, HPA）轴调控，可使个体通过在表达对应受体的细胞中产生转录效应来应对应激刺激。两类可结合糖皮质激素的受体——盐皮质激素受体（MR）与糖皮质激素受体（GR）——广泛分布于多种脊椎动物组织中，但其在大脑中的表达尤为关键。神经受体模式具备同时整合多种行为与生理性状的潜力，其中涵盖通过负反馈过程对糖皮质激素分泌进行自我调控的环节。在本研究中，我们对雌性大山雀（Parus major）的全脑GR与MR mRNA表达水平进行了定量检测，构建了覆盖48个脑区的表达分布图谱。这一针对大山雀的首个此类图谱显示，两类受体均呈广泛但非全域性的分布。在下丘脑室旁核……