| MadSci Network: Medicine |
Estrogen definitely crosses the blood brain barrier. In animal experiments estrogen has some very interesting effects on levels of brain hormones. Many women notice substantial affects of replacement estrogen on mood and other physical processes controlled by the various regulatory centers of the brain. Estrogen is a steroid...no not androgenic, body- building steroid... but a different anabolic steroid. They tend to be quite lipid soluble and are capable of sliding through cell membranes fairly easily. There are specific receptor proteins in many tissues (eg, bone, breast, brain, blood vessels) that are really only recently being appreciated.
I found a couple of intersting links with the search: +brain +estrogen receptors on AltaVista