I am performing a study in which adrenalectomized (ADX) animals are going to be introduced to a chronic stress protocol and then having its corticosterone (CORT) levels analyzed a few days after the stress protocol. However, there is a growing field of literature reporting that ADX already induces severe neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation in these animals after 1-2 weeks (which are fewer days than what I intend to do). Thus, adding exogenous CORT would be an important control in such case.

I would like to have advice or previous experiences of researchers that did such work and their methods of controlling for CORT in this case. Thank you very much.