Comparison of behaviors elicited by electrical brain stimulation in dorsal brain stem and hypothalamus of rats.

Abstract

Investigated 4 brain-stimulation phenomena elicited from both dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic sites, using a total of 20 male albino Holtzman Sprague-Dawley rats. Results show that (a) intracranial self-stimulation rate-intensity functions for dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic sites yielded very high (over 1,000 responses/15 min) to moderate (201-500 responses/15 min) response rates; (b) dextroamphetamine produced higher response rates than either levoamphetamine or saline at both dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic sites, indicating that noradrenergic dorsal brain stem fibers (or cell bodies) support intracranial self-stimulation; (c) dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic self-stimulation sites reliably produced escape behavior; (d) simultaneous stimulation of dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic sites at subthreshold intensities interacted to produce suprathreshold response rates. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)