Also called lutenizing hormone-releasing hormone, it is a peptide hormone or neurohormone consisting of 10 amino acids that when released from the hypothalamus stimulate the gonadotrope cells of the anterior pituitary gland to produce lutenizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone. Thus, while very low during childhood, its intermittent secretion at the onset of puberty triggers sexual development when it becomes crucial for female reproductive function. The identity and function of the hormone were discovered by Robert Guillemin. Andrew V. Schally and Rosalyn Yalow for which they received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1977.
See Amino acids, Arcuate nucleus, De Morsier-Kallmann syndrome, Hormones, Hypothalamus, Menarche, Puberty, Pituitary gland