Abstract
Early radiation damage in rat thymocytes has been assessed at 4 hours and 24 hours following varying doses of whole body irradiation and compared with the effects produced by a dose of 1000 rads to the head only of the animal. The indirect dose to the shielded thymus in these head irradiation experiments was found to be 22 rads. The criteria employed to assess the radiation damage were: changes in wet weight, DNA content, pyknosis, Cr51uptake, supernatant NADase alkaline RNAase and soluble RNA and nucleotide content of the thymus. No radiation damage beyond what could be expected from scattered irradiation was produced in the thymus by head irradiation only. Adrenalectomized and hypophysectomized animals showed no difference in their response to whole body irradiation as compared to unoperated controls. It is concluded that the adenohypophysis response of irradiation is not involved in the death or damage of thymocytes following low doses of whole body irradiation.
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