Control of ovarian innervation

Abstract

The presence of intra-ovarian nerves was reported more than a century ago and successive investigations have demonstrated that the mammalian ovary is innervated by both sympathetic and sensory fibres distributed to the different compartments of the gland, such as blood vessels, ovarian stroma and follicle wall. Despite the extensive ovarian innervation and the experimental evidence indicating that neuromediators can influence sex steroid production, the role of the nervous system in the control of ovarian activity is still largely unknown.