Endocrine Abstracts

Pro-inflammatory cytokines activate the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis but chronic inflammatory diseases such as Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) do not. The axis is subtly subnormal despite nocturnal cytokine peaks. This poses the question ‘Why does the endocrine dog not bark in the cytokine night?’. Is this chronic stress adaptation similar to that seen with restraint when the normotypic stressor is reduced with decreased parvocellular CRH mRNA, a compensatory ...