Sunday, May 18, 2008
Student Union Building, Upper (Queensborough Community College)
88

The Anti-Androgen, Flutamide Causes Organizational Changes in Spinal Cord Motor Nuclei

Marie-Pierre Payen and Regina Sullivan. Queensborough Community College, Bayside, NY

Androgens plays an important role in initiation and maintenance of the masculinization process in vertebrates. Levator ani and the bulbocavernose muscles seem to exhibit multiple structural changes related to androgen level in male and female. Research done by Grisham et al. treated the spinal motor neurons that innervate those muscles in the penis with Flutamide (an antiandrogen). The results showed a demasculinization of those neurons in males. This project extends these findings by looking at a second motoneuron pool present in the retrodorsal lateral nucleus of male and female rat's fetus. We used the tools in NIH ImageJ software to measure the size variation in neurons.