[Prenatal hydrocortisone modification of the adrenocortical function of adult rats with hereditary arterial hypertension].

The adrenocortical function of adult normotensive (Wistar) and hypertensive rats with hereditary stress-induced arterial hypertension was studied after the injection of hydrocortisone to their mothers on the 16th and 18th days of gestation. Prenatal hydrocortisone treatment decreased adrenocortical reactivity to emotional stress or to intracerebroventricular injection of norepinephrine in adult Wistar rats, but did not modify the reaction to stress induced by bleeding, ether anesthesia or central stimulation with carbocholine. Hormonal treatment did not change the reactivity of rats with hereditary stress-induced arterial hypertension to both stress factors employed, enhanced it by intracerebral norepinephrine injection but decreased it by carbocholine intracerebroventricular injection. Thus, the interstrain differences in the modification action of the hormones were observed. These differences may be caused by peculiar brain organization of hypertensive rats, namely their decreased reactivity to norepinephrine.