With the object of investigating the so-called "feed-back" mechanism whereby hormones from the various endocrine glands presumably influence the hypothalamus in its regulation of the hypophyseal tropic hormones, the effect of hypophysectomy, ovariectomy, thyroidectomy, adrenalectomy and adrenal medullectomy on the nucleolar size of neurons in 16 hypothalamic nuclei was studied. A total of forty-five female albino rats was used. The nucleoli were measured under oil by means of a Cooke AEI image splitting eyepiece. For every rat 50 nucleoli in each of the 16 hypothalamic nuclei was measured, a total of 36,000 measurements. Hypophysectomy was found to affect all of the nuclei either after a short period (5 days) or after 60 days. Ovariectomy (20 days) caused nucleolar size changes in six nuclei, thyroidectomy (30 days) in eight, adrenalectomy (14 days) in all of the nuclei and adrenal medullectomy (30 days) in all of the nuclei. The results indicate that the absence of the various hormones does affect the activity of hypothalamic neurons as determined by nucleolar size changes. The use of the present methods also appears to "localize" centers for specific activities in the hypothalamus in some instances (e.g. ovariectomy) but not in others (e.g. adrenalectomy).

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