Fig. 2

Evidence suggest that androgens can mediate either neuroprotective or neurotoxic effects. Classical intracellular AR activation mediated phosphorylation of effectors of the MAPK and PI3K-AKT pathways while activation of putative membrane androgen receptors mediated suppression of phosphorylation of MAPK and PI3K-AKT pathway effectors in C6 cells and cortical astrocytes [13, 14]. These studies suggest that consideration of androgen receptor type predominance in select tissues may be warranted when developing androgen pathway targeted interventions. Pie charts adjacent to proteins represent the protein’s relative abundance in the periphery (blue), macula (orange), and fovea (gray) based on the mass spectrometry data provided by the Skeie and Mahajan [5] study