The Small Grants for Exploratory Research is a mechanism at the National Science Foundation to provide support for small-scale, exploratory, high-risk research in all fields of science. Dr. Silver has found the appearance of non-neuronal cell types in the brain following specific behaviors associated with reproduction. She has presented evidence to suggest that this new population of cells are mast cells of the immune system. Dr. Silver and her students will now examine the appearance of putative mast cells by determining whether they are migrating into the brain in response to appropriate environmental and behavioral stimuli, or whether these cells preexist in the CNS but remain undetectable. She will also examine the influence of behavioral and endocrine state on this population of non-neuronal cells. To accomplish this aim, Dr. Silver and her students will determine whether there is a sexual dimorphism in the distribution and number of putative mast cells and define the role played by gonadal and pituitary hormones in this phenomenon. Finally, she will use state-of-the art anatomical techniques to characterize this population of cells as mast cells and determine whether they possess receptors for steroid and peptide hormones. This research is appropriate for the SGER competition since it will provide strong preliminary work on a novel and exciting idea which opens a completely new direction in the field of behavioral neuroendocrinology. The results could provide a new mechanism for peptide-hormone release in the brain as well as to establish an interrelationship between the immune and neural systems during normally occurring behaviors.
