Q."Hypothalamus is the super master endocrine gland in human body". Justify. OR "Cardiac muscle exhibits a blending characteristics of both skeletal and visceral muscles". Analyse.

This answer addresses the primary question (hypothalamus as super master gland): it controls the pituitary — the body's conventional master gland — through releasing/inhibiting hormones and by producing hormones the posterior pituitary stores and releases.

The pituitary gland is traditionally called the master endocrine gland because its hormones regulate the activity of several other endocrine glands in the body (such as the thyroid, adrenal cortex, and gonads). However, the pituitary itself does not act independently — its own secretions are tightly controlled by the hypothalamus, the region of the brain lying just above it and connected to it by the hypophyseal portal system (for the anterior pituitary) and by nerve fibres (for the posterior pituitary). The hypothalamus secretes specific releasing hormones (which stimulate the anterior pituitary to secrete a particular hormone) and inhibiting hormones (which suppress a particular anterior pituitary secretion) — examples include thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH, stimulating TSH release), gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH, stimulating LH/FSH release), corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH, stimulating ACTH release), growth-hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH), and somatostatin (which inhibits growth hormone release). Because nearly every major anterior pituitary hormone is switched on or off by a corresponding hypothalamic releasing/inhibiting hormone, the hypothalamus effectively directs the pituitary's own hormonal output. In addition, certain hormones — oxytocin and vasopressin (antidiuretic hormone, ADH) — are actually synthesized by neurosecretory cells in the hypothalamus itself, and are simply transported down nerve axons to be stored in and released from the posterior pituitary. Since the hypothalamus thus both directly produces some hormones released via the pituitary and controls the secretion of most of the pituitary's own hormones — which in turn control several other endocrine glands throughout the body — it is described as sitting one lev …