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Journal of Experimental Biology 28,463-472 (1951)
Published by Company of Biologists 1951

On The Hormonal and Neural Control of the Release of Gametes in Ascidians

D. B. CARLISLE ¹

¹ Department of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, University Museum, Oxford

1. It is argued that the neural gland (+ciliated pit) of ascidians is homologous with the entire pituitary of vertebrates, adenohypophysis as well as neurohypophysis.

2. Ciona and Phallusia are shown to respond to an injection of chorionic gonadotrophin by the release of gametes.

3. They respond in the same way to feeding with eggs and sperm of their own species but not to those of other species.

4. This response is prevented in both cases by section of the nerves from the ganglion to the region of the gonads.

5. Destruction of the heart and removal of the blood does not prevent the response to feeding with gametes, nor to injection of gonadotrophin into the neural region; this operation does prevent the reaction if the site of injection is elsewhere.

6. Destruction of the neural gland, leaving the ganglion intact, prevents the response to feeding with gametes, but does not prevent its following an injection of chorionic gonadotrophin.

7. The hypothesis is advanced that the neural gland (+ciliated pit) is the sense organ involved in this response to feeding, and that it produces gonadotrophin and passes it to the ganglion by a non-vascular route; the ganglion then stimulates by nervous pathways the gonads to release gametes.

8. It is suggested that gonadotrophin is here fulfilling a sensory role in passing information from sense organ to the central nervous system. It may be contrasted with adrenalin which passes instructions from the central nervous system to effectors.

9. Phallusia is shown to respond with gamete release to an injection of an extract of the neural complex of Ciona.

Note:

This work was performed in the laboratories of the Zoological Station of Naples while holding a Senior Demyship of Magdalen College, Oxford, a Beit Memorial Fellowship for Medical Research, and the Oxford University Naples Scholarship. I wish to thank Prof. A. C. Hardy, Prof. R. Dohrn and Prof. Z. M. Bacq, and Messrs A. E. Needham and W. M. S. Russell.