THE SPONTANEOUS ACTIVITY AND FOOD INTAKE OF RATS WITH HYPOTHALAMIC LESIONS

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Animals having bilateral lesions in the medial hypothalamus in and around the ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus tended to indulge in much less spontaneous running than the majority of normal controls, or than was exhibited preoperatively. Food consumption of the obese operated animals might greatly exceed the intake of the normal litter-mate controls or might not exceed it at all, depending upon the nature of the food supplied. A soft palatable diet encouraged maximum consumption, and a hard dry pellet diet apparently discouraged high intake; growth appeared to be more rapid on the former. Possibly the obese animal'' s efforts to increase food intake and cut down energy expenditure are indicative of a partial inability of its physiological mechanism to metabolize easily all of the available food stores.

This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit: