HYPERTROPHIC ADRENALS AND THEIR RESPONSE TO STRESS AFTER LESIONS IN THE MEDIAN EMINENCE OF TOTALLY HYPOPHYSECTOMIZED PIGEONS

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Abstract
Four per cent formaldehyde, insulin, or epinephrine in oil was injected for 5 days into pigeons subjected to varying degrees of hypophysectomy alone or together with large lesions in the median eminence and hypothalamus. Adrenals atrophied after the removal of the pars distalis alone or together with the neurohypophysis in untreated pigeons but showed markedly hypertrophic interrenal tissue (cortex in mammals) after treatment with formaldehyde or insulin. The slope of the dose-response curve was similar in operated and unoperated pigeons. The accumulation of bile in the liver parenchyma, which may occur after removal of the pars distalis, is an endogenous stress which was associated regularly with adrenal hypertrophy. After very large lesions of the median eminence and ventral hypothalamus in addition to total hypophysectomy, adrenals hypertrophied rather than atrophied, and the response to formaldehyde paralleled that in intact and "hypophysectomized" pigeons. Interrenal tissue was stimulated regularly; chromaffin tissue was partially degranulated, sometimes showed hyperplasia with colchicine, but only occasionally appeared hypertrophied. Epinephrine in nearly lethal doses caused only minimal adrenal enlargement. After adrenal denervation followed by hypophysectomy, the adrenals were still stimulated by formaldehyde. It appears that the interrenal tissue of the pigeon responds to a humoral stimulus not of hypophyseal origin in the absence of the hypophyseal-hypothalamic system.

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