ON THE VAGO-INSULIN AND SYMPATHETICO-ADRENAL SYSTEM AND THEIR MUTUAL RELATIONSHIP UNDER CONDITIONS OF CENTRAL EXCITATION INDUCED BY ANOXIA AND CONVULSANT DRUGS

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Abstract
Inhalation of 7% O2 causes hyperglycemia in normal rabbits but lowers the blood sugar in rabbits with denervated adrenals. Anoxia raises the blood sugar in normal rats and causes hypoglycemia in adrenalec-tomized rats. If the vagi are divided intra-abdominally in adrenalectomized rats these animals show either no change in blood sugar or a slight hyperglycemia in response to anoxia. Metrazol causes hyperglycemia in normal and hypoglycemia in adrenalectomized rats. After subdiaphrag-matic vagotomy adrenalectomized rats respond to metrazol with no change or a slight rise in blood sugar. These results are interpreted to mean that anoxia and metrazol cause a stimulation of both the sympathetico-adrenal and the vago-insulin system, the effect on the latter being masked by the more powerful stimulation of the former. This conclusion is substantiated by the assay of blood of adrenalec-tomized rats for insulin by using the adrenalectomized mouse as a test animal. Blood obtained from adrenalectomized rats at the end of the anoxia period or after inj. of metrazol produced a fall in blood sugar in the test animal. Such a hypoglycemic effect was regularly absent when adrenalectomized and vagotomized animals were subjected to anoxia and metrazol respectively and the blood was assayed for insulin. Since, under conditions of stimulation of autonomic centers with metrazol or (reflexly) by anoxia, parasympathetic and sympathetic centers are activated at the same time it does not seem justified to apply the concept of reciprocal innervation to central autonomic processes.

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