Data from a series of experiments with male albino Sprague-Dawley rats show that intraventricular injections of 6-hydroxydopamine after pretreatment with desmethylimipramine and pargyline, or pargyline alone, produced severe depletions of brain dopamine. Like Ss with lateral hypothalamic damage, these Ss became aphagic and adipsic, showed prolonged periods of anorexia before they again accepted dry chow and water, maintained relatively low body weights, no longer increased food intakes after injection of 2-deoxy-dextroglucose, and delayed drinking to thirst stimuli. However, unlike recovered laterals, they did not have marked impairments of feeding efficiency, learned taste aversions, or thermoregulation during heat stress. Results suggest that brain catecholamines play an important role in some regulatory processes, but that lateral hypothalamic lesions may not be tantamount to destruction of the dopamine-containing neurons of the nigrostriatal pathway. (4½ p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)