Abstract
Female rats subjected to 48 h of water deprivation drank more than similarly deprived males. There was no sexual difference in the dipsogenic responses to intracellular dehydration produced by intravenous hypertonic NaCl but females drank considerably more than males in response to the extracellular stimuli of hyperoncotic polyethylene glycol and angiotensin II. It is concluded that intact adult female rats are dipsogenically more responsive than adult male rats to stimuli acting through the pathways of extracellularly induced thirst but not to those arising from the intracellular fluid compartment.