It has now been about a century since a flurry of discoveries identified first the pituitary, then more specifically the anterior pituitary and soon thereafter the central nervous system as components regulating gonadal and downstream reproductive functions. This was an era of ablation/replacement designs using at first rudimentary and then increasingly pure preparations of gonadal and pituitary “activities” or transplanting actual glands, whole or homogenized, among subjects. There was, of course, controversy as is typical of lively and productive scientific debates to this day. The goals of this commentary are to briefly review the history of this work and how the terms referring to interactions among the components of the hypothalamo (as the central neural component was soon associated with)–pituitary–gonadal (HPG) axis evolved, and then to question if the current terms used have kept up with our understanding of the system. The focus in this review will be the actions of estradiol primarily upon the hypothalamus. Important actions of progesterone on the hypothalamus as well as both steroids on the pituitary response to hypothalamic factors are both acknowledged and largely ignored in this document, as are any sex differences as we focus on females.

中文翻译：

---

雌二醇对女性下丘脑-垂体-性腺轴的作用

大约一个世纪以来，一系列的发现首先确定了垂体，然后更具体地说，确定了垂体前叶，随后又确定了中枢神经系统是调节性腺和下游生殖功能的组成部分。这是一个消融/替代设计的时代，首先使用基本的、然后逐渐纯净的性腺和垂体“活动”制剂，或在受试者之间移植实际的腺体，整体或同质化。当然，存在着争议，这是迄今为止活跃而富有成效的科学辩论的典型特征。本评论的目的是简要回顾这项工作的历史，以及涉及下丘脑（很快与中枢神经成分相关）-垂体-性腺 (HPG) 轴各组成部分之间相互作用的术语是如何演变的，然后质疑当前使用的术语是否符合我们对系统的理解。本次综述的重点是雌二醇主要对下丘脑的作用。黄体酮对下丘脑的重要作用以及两种类固醇对垂体对下丘脑因素的反应的重要作用在本文件中都得到了承认，但在很大程度上被忽略了，因为我们关注的是女性，所以任何性别差异也是如此。