There was an excellent article in the Chicago Tribune today by their science reporter, "Gender and the Brain." Among a lot of information about how men's and women's brains differ (we knew that all along, didn't we? ), they discussed the discovery that the kisspeptin hormone (found in 2003) triggers puberty. Kisspeptin stimulates the release of the growth hormone, which in turn stimulates the pituitary gland to release the reproductive hormones. These hormones then travel to the testes and ovaries, stimulating the release of testosterone or estrogen.

I love the name of this hormone, especially considering what it's responsible for! It apparently gets its name from the gene that directs its production...KiSS-1. Apparently the hormone was first discovered in the 1990s and named metastin because it was thought to have a role in metastasis. However, in 2003 French and American scientists linked it to puberty.

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