 Now we're going to end up with a hormone cocktail here in the ladies that probably, well, perhaps it will not be surprising. But if you think about a hormone cocktail, it probably will not surprise you to find out that the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland are involved. So let's, we've seen this before, we've dealt with these guys before, we definitely dealt with them just in the last lecture on the thyroid gland. So we're familiar, I just have a little slice of brain here so that you can remind yourself of the anatomy of the hypothalamus, which is this upper region of the brain. You remember, of course you do, that the hypothalamus connects to the pituitary gland via the infundibulum. And we're going to be talking about hormones created by the hypothalamus and hormones created by anterior pituitary. And remember the relationship between those guys. Hypothalamus, oh no, no, no, no, no, that is never going to work for me. Try, no, perhaps this. That's hypothalamus, I just wanted to draw an H there. And this is ant pit. And remember that there was a portal system between them that allows hypothalamus to dump just a few hormones in usually called releasing hormones. And those hormones go to ant pit and say, hey ma'am, we need some work done. Would you send some other hormones out? Ant pit throws some other hormones out into the blood and they go affect someone else far away. The hormones that we're going to look at today are produced by the hypothalamus, gonadotropin releasing hormone. And that's the symbol for gonadotropin releasing hormone. And that's produced by the hypothalamus. And gonadotropin releasing hormone tells ant pit to produce luteinizing hormone and follicle stimulating hormone. So these are the anterior pituitary hormones that we're going to keep track of. Now we're going to start out by looking at what happens with these three hormones during one complete menstrual cycle. So let's go back to that crazy chart that I've got going on, this crazy thing. And let's orient ourselves to the crazy chart. Crazy chart, here's how it works. We're going to keep track of what happens in the hypothalamus and ant pit. These are both places we're going to look at hormones. We've got to remember what's going on with the follicle in the ovary itself. And this is where, if you need to go back and get a little anatomy rah-rah, you can do that. We're going to keep track of the hormones produced by the follicle cells, which is why we have to keep track of the follicles. And then ultimately, we're going to take a look at what is going on with the uterus during this time. Now, if you've learned anything in physio, this is our very last lecture. If you've learned anything, you probably have learned that things are really complicated. And there's often many layers of interaction and regulation. And that is definitely going to be the case here. So I'm going to begin with the hormones, the three hormones that I already told you about. We're going to look at those guys, knowing that those hormones are absolutely going to be affecting what's going on elsewhere and what's going on elsewhere is going to explain what we draw up here with our hormones. So there's probably going to be some holes to start with. You're probably going to be a little like, what, but that's okay because you always trust me, right? All right, so I'm going to draw you what happens with gonadotropin releasing hormone over the course of 28 days because some probably male human decided that all of our cycles are 28 days long. And perhaps I should also say that, you know, this probably shouldn't be a zero, it should probably be a one day one of your menstrual cycle begins when you begin bleeding. And so that, why? Because it's easy to tell when that happens. All the other like markers in our cycle, we know what happens, but we can't really see it. If your endometrium is thickening or if you are getting a surge of luteinizing hormone, like nobody can see that. However, well, you know the day that you start your period and you probably are not real fond of anybody else knowing that, but it's a moment that there's no argument, like yes you did or no you didn't. All right, so that's why we start with that on day one. Okay, here's what happens with gonadotropin releasing hormone. Please, one more thing. Probably like, dude, just draw the picture. No, not yet. Please keep in mind that this is a cycle. So day one is the day after day 28. And so what I draw at the end of my picture here has to sort of match with the beginning of my picture over here. Take a deep breath and imagine this. I have a little bit of a high level of gonadotropin releasing hormone from the hypothalamus on day one. It drops down and then it resumes like a normal gonadotropin releasing hormone pattern, which is fluctuating. And in fact, gonadotropin releasing hormone is kind of squirted out from the hypothalamus at a regular impulses. And the pulses are like every 90 minutes, you get another little squirt of gonadotropin releasing hormone. So I tried to draw that for you by making it kind of wiggly like this. But at the beginning of your cycle, you have a little rise in gonadotropin releasing hormone. Just before day 14, you have another little rise, just a little rise, and then it goes back to doing its little thing that it does all over the place. But if we had a rise at the beginning, that means that we also had to have a rise at the end right to match that one at the beginning. And so just before you start your period, you actually have a slight increase in gonadotropin releasing hormone. So think about this a second. We should see a rather similar pattern with our anterior pituitary hormones because ant-pit is told what to do by gonadotropin releasing hormone. Now, it's not perfectly clean and clear and that's because, of course, nothing is. But I'm going to pick my colors on purpose. And if you did happen to watch the anatomy lecture, then my colors match the anatomy lecture, which is rather odd but true. Okay, so look at this. The first hormone that I'm going to draw, did you see how I kind of had a little bit of a high level and then I'm kind of dropping it down and then I'm going to sort of actually drop it really down? This hormone is follicle stimulating hormone. And my colors, I'm doing this on purpose. And I'll explain that in a second. Now, where you have kind of a little surge of gonadotropin releasing hormone, you also end up with a little surge of follicle stimulating hormone. And then it sort of stays low and toward the end of your cycle, you end up with another little surge of follicle stimulating hormone. Okay, I'm pleased with how I did that. Who's my other guy that we're going to keep track of here? Lutinizing hormone. So, lutinizing hormone. Lutinizing hormone doesn't do a whole heck of a lot. It might have a little bit of a rise at the beginning, but it's pretty steady and it's staying pretty steady. And I'm meaning it to stay steady even though it looks like it's slightly creeping up. And then, whoa. In fact, I think the rise happens sooner because it goes much higher and then it comes back down and look, then it stays back at its steady. Whoa, that's supposed to be steady. It's steady place. How's that? There are images of this all over the place. So if you want to check your images with someone else, that's totally cool. I just want to draw it for you because I think it helps to actually draw it out yourself. Okay. I'm like, dude, what are these guys doing? Well, follicle-stimulating hormone is going to affect our follicle. So let's talk next about what's going on with the follicle and then we can deal with how these hormones are affecting it.