Effect of Hypothalamic Lesions on Steroid-Induced Atrophy of Adrenal Cortex in the Dog.

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Abstract
Electrolytic hypothalamic lesions were produced in 23 dogs. One month later, these animals and a group of normal controls were subjected to left adrenalectomy, and then injected with hydrocortisone acetate intramuscularly, 10 dogs receiving 50 mg daily and 13 dogs 6.25 mg every other day for 14 days. The right adrenals were then removed and their weight and histology compared to the previously removed left adrenals. None of the animals showed atrophy of the left adrenals. Fifty of hydrocortisone produced the same degree of adrenal atrophy in all the lesion animals as it did in the normal controls. 6.25 mg every other day produced a 9% decline in adrenal weight in dogs with destruction of the median eminence of the hypothalamus, no weight change in the normal controls, and a slight increase in weight in animals with lesions in other parts of the nervious system. It is concluded that destruction of the median eminence of the hypothalamus, which blocks stress- induced increases in ACTH secretion, does not modify the depression in ACTH secretion that follows corticoid administration.