Regulatory Aspects of The Human Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Thyroid Axis

Publication date: Available online 1 October 2017 Source:Best Practice & Research Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism Author(s): Ferdinand Roelfsema, Anita Boelen, Andries Kalsbeek, Eric Fliers Thyroid hormones are essential for growth, differentiation and metabolism. during prenatal and postnatal life. The hypothalamus-pituitary-thyroid (HPT)-axis is optimized for these actions. Knowledge of this hormonal axis is derived from decades of experiments in animals and man, and more recently from spontaneous mutations in man and constructed mutations in mice. This review examines the HPT-axis in relation to 24 h TSH profiles in men in various physiological and pathophysiological conditions, including obesity, age, longevity, and primary as well as central hypothyroidism. Hormone rhythms can be analyzed by quantitative methods, e.g. operator-independent deconvolution, approximate entropy and fitting the 24-h component by Cosinor analysis or related procedures. These approaches have identified some of the regulatory components in (patho)physiological conditions.
Source: Best Practice and Research Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism - Category: Endocrinology Source Type: research