EVENT DETAILS AND ABSTRACT

Title: Title: Modeling the LH surge in the human menstrual cycle.
Speaker: M.L. Zeeman, University of Texas
Speaker Info: San Antonio
Brief Description:
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Abstract:

In vertebrates, ovulation is triggered by a surge of luteinizing hormone (LH) from the pituitary. The precise mechanism for initiating the surge in the human menstrual cycle remains a fundamental open question of physiology. Sampling of serum LH on a time scale of minutes reveals pulsatile release from the pituitary in response to pulses of gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) from the hypothalamus. In this talk we discuss the physiological background, and we present a mathematical model of the human pituitary as a damped oscillator driven by the hypothalamic oscillator. The numerically simulated LH surge is consistent with existing data on the time scales of both minutes and days. We use the model to explain the surprising GnRH pulse frequency characteristics required to successfully treat human infertility disorders such as Kallmann's syndrome, and to make new experimental predictions.