That Neuroscience Guy - Neuroscience Bites - The Pituitary Gland

Episode Date: February 11, 2024

In today's Neuroscience Bite, we discuss the Pituitary Gland - the body part responsible for releasing hormones throughout your body. 

Hi, my name is Olof Kregolsen, and I'm a neuroscientist at the University of Victoria. And in my spare time, I'm that neuroscience guy. Welcome to another Neuroscience Bite. Now, a lot of people have written in asking us to talk more about glands and hormones, and we've decided to break that down into bites. So on today's bite, what is the pituitary gland? Well, your pituitary gland is a small pea-sized gland located at the base of your brain below your hypothalamus. It's a key part of your endocrine system and it's in charge of making several essential hormones. Your pituitary gland also tells other endocrine system glands to release hormones.

What is a gland? A gland is an organ that makes one or more substances, such as hormones, but also digestive juices, sweat, or tears. Endocrine glands release hormones directly into your bloodstream. And what are hormones? We've talked about this before, but hormones are chemicals that coordinate different functions in your body by carrying messages through your blood to various organs, skin, muscles, and other tissues. These signals tell your body what to do and when to do it. So the brain basically controls the pituitary gland and other key glands, and it tells them to release things at various times dependent on when it would be appropriate to do so.

One of the key hormones released by the pituitary gland is adrenocorticotropic hormone, or ACTH. ACTH plays a role in how your body responds to stress. It stimulates your adrenal glands to produce cortisol, which we've talked about before, the stress hormone, which has many functions including regulating metabolism, maintaining blood pressure, regulating blood glucose levels, and reducing inflammation. Another hormone released by the pituitary gland is follicle stimulating hormone. FSH stimulates sperm production in males and stimulates the ovaries to develop estrogens and also plays a role in egg production in females. It's also known as a gonadotropic hormone. The pituitary gland also releases growth hormone. In children, growth hormone stimulates growth. In other words, it helps children grow taller.

In adults, growth hormone helps maintain healthy muscles and bones and impacts fat distribution. Growth hormone also has an impact on your metabolism. Another hormone released by the pituitary gland is luteinizing hormone, or LH. LH stimulates ovulation in females and testosterone production in males. It's also another gonadotropic hormone. Prolactin is another hormone released by the pituitary gland. It basically stimulates breast milk production after giving birth and can also affect fertility and sexual function in adults. The last one I'll mention is thyroid stimulating hormone, TSH. TSH stimulates your thyroid to produce thyroid hormones that

manage your metabolism, energy levels, and your nervous system. And there are people that have problems with their metabolism and have to take things to regulate their thyroid because with thyroid dysfunction, it might lead to unwanted obesity, for instance. Anyway, that's a quick run through the pituitary gland. It's controlled by the brain and when it's told to do so, it releases hormones into the bloodstream that control all the various functions that I've mentioned. That's all I've got for this bite. We'll talk about another hormone and gland again soon.

Don't forget, check out that website, thatneuroscienceguy.com. Of course, send us ideas. This one came from you, the listener. You can send us messages through X and threads at thatneuroscienceguy, or you can email us, thatne that neuroscience guy at gmail.com. And of course, thank you for listening to the podcast. Please subscribe. My name is Olive Craig Olson, and I'm that neuroscience guy. I'll see you soon for another full episode of the podcast.