Iodine-125-labeled triiodothyronine in rat brain: evidence for localization in discrete neural systems.

Autoradiograms prepared from adult rat brains demonstrate that nerve cells and neuropil in different brain regions selectively concentrate and retain intravenously administered triiodothyronine, by mechanisms susceptible to saturation with excess triiodothyronine. A neuroregulatory role for thyroid hormones, strongly supported by the observations, may account for their marked effects on behavior and the activity of the autonomic nervous system.