ABSTRACT
Acute stress, chronic stress plus hydration, cortisone treatment, cortisone treatment plus dehydration were used as methods of investigation and the relation between the neurosecretory activity of the hypothalamic supraoptic nucleus and paraventricular nucleus and the neurosecretory material around the hypophysial portal vessels of the median eminence on the one hand and the corticotrophin release on the other hand, has been studied in the rat. Whereas stress stimulates both the activity of the above mentioned cells of the hypothalamus and the ACTH release, stress plus hydration causes a depression of these hypothalamic cells but nevertheless causes a marked ACTH release. Cortisone inhibits the activity of the cells in the supraoptic nucleus and the paraventricular nucleus as well as the ACTH release whereas cortisone plus dehydration causes stimulation but inhibits the ACTH release. In some stress and cortisone treatment groups the variations of the neurosecretory material around the hypophysial portal vessels and of the ACTH release were found to show a correlation. It is concluded that the activity of the cells of the supraoptic nucleus and the paraventricular nucleus and the ACTH release do not seem to have any definite connection, whereas some observations indicate that the neurosecretory material in the region of the median eminence around the hypophysial portal vessels may have some significance in ACTH release.
