In the snail Helix aspersa the gonadotropic hormone-producing dorsal bodies are under inhibitory nervous control of putative growth hormone-producing neuroendocrine cells.

In many Stylommatophora, dorsal bodies (DB) consist of cell groups dispersed in the connective tissue surrounding the cerebral ganglia. It has previously been shown that in these animals the DB cells are under inhibitory nervous control. In the present tissue culture experiment on Helix aspersa it is shown that the axons innervating the DB cells originate from the peptidergic cerebral green cells (CeGC). It is argued that the observed morphological relationship between the CeGC and the DB--the CeGc produce a growth hormone, the DB a female gonadotropic hormone--reflects the antagonism between growth and reproduction which has often been reported for pulmonate snails.