Research has shown that testosterone plays a vital role in maintaining brain health and protecting against neurodegenerative diseases. Beyond its well-known effects on sexual development and function, testosterone also has a significant impact on neuroprotection. Together, these studies suggest a testable hypothesis that the target musculature is a critical site of action for the neuroprotective effects of gonadal hormones. Therefore, we believe that the dendritic labeling across groups was comparable and that the shorter dendritic lengths we observed in saporin groups reflect dendritic atrophy. The possibility that confounds arising from saporin injection could affect retrograde transport is also an important consideration, as such an artifact could potentially result in apparent alterations in dendritic morphology. Previous studies have demonstrated that neither axonal transport of BHRP (Leslie et al., 1991) nor dendritic transport as demonstrated by the rostrocaudal or radial extent of dendritic labeling (Fargo and Sengelaub, 2004b; Goldstein and Sengelaub, 1994; Hebbeler et al., 2002; Kurz et al., 1991) are affected by hormone levels. This differential response suggests that the hormone metabolites act through different mechanisms/pathways to attenuate induced dendritic atrophy. The idea that testosterone is influencing neurogenesis via increased neuroprotection fits well with findings that testosterone enhances neurogenesis mainly through increased neuronal survival rather than through changes in cell proliferation. Specifically, castration increased BDNF levels within the mossy fibers extending from the dentate gyrus to the CA3 layer of the hippocampus 186,187, which directly contradicts the hypothesis that testosterone is up-regulating BDNF in the dentate gyrus to, in turn, enhance adult neurogenesis. Male rats have higher levels of BDNF within the dentate gyrus than do females , suggesting that BDNF levels may be regulated by sex hormones. Similarly, castration did not cause a reduction in Ki67-expressing cells in the dentate gyrus of male mice or rats , supporting the general conclusion that testosterone does not play a significant role in regulating cell proliferation. For both female rats and mice, prolonged exposure (14–21 days) to estradiol caused a decrease in neurogenesis within portions of the olfactory bulbs 80,81, although the relative effects on the accessory and main olfactory bulbs differed between the two species. Although testosterone production by Leydig cells is 7 to 8 times higher than that produced by the ovaries in females, circulating testosterone also has significant effects on female physiology . The idea that testosterone could influence adult neurogenesis stemmed initially from observed sex differences in levels of cell proliferation and cell survival within the adult brain . Subsequent experiments with laboratory rodents have tested the effects of testosterone and its steroid metabolites upon adult neurogenesis, as well as the functional consequences of induced changes in neurogenesis. It is thus likely that the muscle as the site of action for the neuroprotective effect of estradiol in quadriceps motoneurons. Thus, as differences in the density of androgen receptors are thought to underlie differences in androgen responsiveness across tissues (Monks et al., 2006), the lower density of androgen receptors in the quadriceps system might result in a smaller protective effect of testosterone. However, the decline in GABAA receptor subunit expression may actually be a consequence of declining neurosteroid levels. The expression of some known neurosteroid-sensitive GABAA receptor subunits–α1, α2, α4, δ—have been shown to decrease in the prefrontal cortex of AD patients (Luchetti et al., 2011b), concurrent with declines in allopregnanolone levels (Bernardi et al., 2000; Marx et al., 2006; Smith et al., 2006; Naylor et al., 2010). However, both DHT and 3α-diol were significantly reduced 2 weeks following injury compared to intact controls, while 3α-diol levels were positively correlated with the degree of brain edema, suggesting that a compensatory response may have occurred to increase local neuroprotective activity (Lopez-Rodriguez et al., 2016). The authors reported that progesterone levels were unaffected at time points from 24 h up to 2 weeks following TBI, while testosterone, DHT and 3α-diol exhibited more complex temporal changes. Other studies have investigated changes in neurosteroid levels in rodent models of induced neurological deficits, as opposed to models of disease that occur spontaneously or due to genetic factors. It is important to note that age was not considered as a factor in this study, which could further compound the interactions between sex- and disease-related effects on neurosteroid levels. In the cerebellum, allopregnanolone decreased in EAE females but not males, while progesterone decreased in both male and female EAE rats, and DHP was unaffected (Giatti et al., 2010). In the SNpc of young 3xTg-AD male mice, TH and total neuron levels were increased to control levels by a single allopregnanolone injection (Sun et al., 2012). Using a controlled frontal cortical contusion model of TBI, it has been shown that allopregnanolone reduces the degree of apoptosis and cell loss, learning and memory deficits, and astrocyte infiltration to the site of injury, without affecting the size of the cavity induced by injury itself (Djebaili et al., 2004, 2005). Progesterone treatment was also shown to improve rotorod performance in rats following MCAO, indicating a potential role in improving balance and motor coordination during stroke recovery (Sayeed et al., 2007). Indeed, neuroactive steroids exert key physiological roles in the PNS acting on the glial 8–16 and neuronal compartments 17–19. However, more recent results have indicated that the peripheral nervous system (PNS) also synthesizes and metabolizes neuroactive steroids and is a target for these molecules. Several reviews have extensively considered and discussed this topic in the central nervous system (CNS), because the first observations were obtained in the brain 2–7.