Who thinks of the bone as being an endocrine organ?

“Who thinks of the bone as being an endocrine organ? You think of the adrenal gland, you think of the pituitary, you don’t think of bone.”
In 2011, he showed that bones play a crucial role in male reproduction: mice that did not produce osteocalcin had abnormally low levels of testosterone and were sterile. Mice that produced high levels, on the other hand, had more testosterone and bred more frequently.

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Photograph: Marcel van den Bergh/Hollandse Hoogte/Redux

Maternal and Offspring Pools of Osteocalcin Influence Brain Development and Functions

http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(13)01073-8

Highlights

Osteocalcin signals in the brain and favors postnatal neurogenesis

Osteocalcin prevents anxiety and depression and favors memory

Maternal osteocalcin crosses the placenta and favors fetal brain development

Maternal osteocalcin influences spatial learning and memory in adult offspring

Summary

The powerful regulation of bone mass exerted by the brain suggests the existence of bone-derived signals modulating this regulation or other functions of the brain. We show here that the osteoblast-derived hormone osteocalcin crosses the blood-brain barrier, binds to neurons of the brainstem, midbrain, and hippocampus, enhances the synthesis of monoamine neurotransmitters, inhibits GABA synthesis, prevents anxiety and depression, and favors learning and memory independently of its metabolic functions. In addition to these postnatal functions, maternal osteocalcin crosses the placenta during pregnancy and prevents neuronal apoptosis before embryos synthesize this hormone. As a result, the severity of the neuroanatomical defects and learning and memory deficits of Osteocalcin^/ mice is determined by the maternal genotype, and delivering osteocalcin to pregnant Osteocalcin^/ mothers rescues these abnormalities in their Osteocalcin^/ progeny. This study reveals that the skeleton via osteocalcin influences cognition and