The functional state of the hypothalamic region in patients with atherosclerosis

"Internal factors" in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis are attracting more and more attention at the present time. Extensive epidemiological studies that have revealed a variety of causes and conditions that contribute to the development of atherosclerosis, however, have shown that the nature of this suffering cannot be reduced only to the nature of nutrition. Experiments with the creation of a model of atherosclerosis in animals and the study of atherosclerosis in humans have cast doubts on the classical theory of the pathogenesis of this disease and required its correction and reevaluation. It turned out that in order to obtain atherosclerosis in a number of laboratory animals, in addition to oral administration of cholesterol, a number of additional conditions are required. In dogs, suppression of thyroid function is necessary (Sfeiner - 1949). In rats, atherosclerosis can be obtained if a decrease in thyroid function is combined with alimentary cholesterolemia and vitamin deficiency (Wilgrow - 1955). Thus, to obtain atherosclerosis in the experiment, it is not enough just an excess of cholesterol. We do not touch here on the question of under what conditions it is possible to compare experimental atherosclerosis and atherosclerosis in humans, we consider it necessary only to emphasize that in the development of atherosclerosis in humans, in addition to external "epidemiological" causes, "internal" characteristics of the organism play a large role (H. N. Anichkov, A. L. Myasnikov and others). LM Rakhlin also believes that "in the broad sense of this word, internal factors can be taken as the level of homeostatic function, the ability to maintain the constancy of the organism's environment in the conditions of its existence." From these positions in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis, much attention is paid to the role of the nervous and endocrine systems. BS Maksudov, repeating classical experiments with "cholesterol" atherosclerosis in a rabbit, discovered a gradual increase in the thyroid stimulating hormone of the pituitary gland in the blood. LA Lushnikova, examining thyrotropin in the blood of patients with coronary atherosclerosis, noted its increase in a number of patients. Interestingly, this increase in thyrotropin secretion by the anterior pituitary gland cannot be associated with a change in thyroid function. This peculiar reaction of the adenohypophysis is regarded (LM Rakhlin and others) as regulatory, indicating the participation of the hypothalamic-pituitary system. This system, as a specific cerebral link, is a stage in the unification of neuro-humoral regulation. Therefore, the neuro-humoral changes discovered in the clinic, as well as in animals with experimental atherosclerosis, were, as it were, an illustration of the importance of disorders in the hypothalamic region in a complex chain of pathogenetic factors in this pathology. However, we did not find in the literature attempts to study the functional state of the hypothalamic region and the overall characteristics of this important part of the brain in atherosclerosis. It is quite natural that with the help of those research methods that are proposed for the functional characteristics of the hypothalamic region, with atherosclerosis, one does not have to wait for deviations similar to those described in the clinic of diencephalitis and diencephaloses. We believe, however, that even small deviations, the so-called "normal limits", can be very indicative of those changes in the function of the interstitial pituitary system, which occur in atherosclerosis.