We have previously shown that chelated copper stimulates the release of luteinizing hormone releasing hormone (LHRH) from explants of the median eminence area (MEA) incubated under in vitro conditions and that this stimulation involves a ligand-specific interaction. In this study, we addressed the question: do testicular steroids regulate the secretory response of LHRH neurons to copper? MEA, obtained from immature, mature, immature castrated and sham-operated rats, were incubated in the presence of various concentrations of copper for 15 min and then in the absence of copper for an additional period of 30 min. We noted that after a lag period of 5 min of incubation, the rate of LHRH release increased in a linear fashion for a period of 15 min. In addition, the rate of LHRHrelease as well as the rate at which LHRH release was accelerated were saturable functions of the concentration of copper. When incubation was carried out in the presence of a nonsaturating concentration of copper (50 µM), the fractional amount (percent of the total MEA content) of LHRHreleased from the MEA of castrated rats was significantly (p < 0.001) lower than that from sham-operated rats; stimulated release being 0.9% and 1.4%, respectively. Similarly, copper-stimulated release from the MEA of immature rats was lower than that from the MEA of mature rats. However, when incubation was carried out in the presence of saturating concentrations of copper (100 or 200 µM), the precentage of stimulated release from the MEA of castrated rats was similar to that of sham-operated rats and it was about 2.8%. In addition, we found that LHRHcontent of the MEA of immature and castrated rats was significantly lower than that of mature and sham-operated rats, respectively. To estimate the size of the releasable pool of LHRHin the MEA of these animals, we maximally stimulated LHRH release with 60 mM K+. It was found that, regardless of the physiological state of the animals, about 2.6% of the MEA content was released. These results suggest that: (1) copper interacts with a limited number of sites on the LHRH neuron; (2) testicular steroids regulate the process of copper-stimulated release of LHRH by increasing the affinity of these interactive sites to copper; (3) testicular steroids increase the size of the releasable pool of LHRH in the median eminence, and (4) the size of the releasable pool is proportional to the MEA content of the peptide and this proportionality is not steroid-dependent. We propose that testicular steroids regulate two important aspects of the secretory function of the LHRH neuron: the capacity of the neuron to release LHRH and the affinity of the copper-interactive sites for copper.