Seasonal reproduction in birds is the adaptation to breed at the time of the greatest survival of young. This exact moment is mainly imposed by the photoperiod which stimulates the hypothalamo-pituitary-gonadal axis and starts breeding season. This article summarizes present knowledge concerning: 1/ perception and transduction of light into the biological signal; 2/ model of the avian photoperi...

1 Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Brain Research Institute Monash Sunway, Monash University Malaysia, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, 2 Department of Psychology, Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States, 3 Laboratory of Integrative Brain Sciences, Department of Biology, Center for Medical Life Science, Waseda University...

The gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) system in the hypothalamus is often considered the final point in integration of environmental cues as they pertain to the reproductive axis. However, cues such as stress and food availability are detectable in the plasma (as glucocorticoid and metabolic fuel fluctuations). Vertebrate gonads express glucocorticoid receptor, therefore we hypothesized tha...