Hyperphagia and obesity produced by parasagittal and coronal hypothalamic knife cuts: Further evidence for a longitudinal feeding inhibitory pathway.

Abstract

The 1st experiment demonstrated that unilateral parasagittal knife cuts combined with contralateral coronal cuts in the posterior hypothalamus or the midbrain significantly increased food intake and body weight in rats. The 2nd experiment revealed that bilateral parasagittal cuts and bilateral coronal cuts in the hypothalamus produced qualitatively similar effects on food intake, diurnal ingestive pattern, finickiness and amphetamine anorexia. The 2 types of cuts differentially altered water intake. In the 3rd experiment coronal cuts in the posterior hypothalamus, like parasagittal cuts in the medial hypothalamus, increased the food intake and body weight of rats previously given bilateral parasagittal transections through the lateral perifornical region. The neuroanatomy and neurochemistry of the longitudinal feeding inhibitory pathway suggested by these results were discussed.