Aggression, avoidance, and reaction to novel environments in female rats with ventromedial hypothalamic lesions.

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Abstract
In an experiment with 30 adult female Sprague-Dawley rats, lesions in the ventromedial hypothalamus of 20 Ss (a) increased the probability of pain-elicited aggressive responses; (b) caused a loss of dominance in a situation where fighting was elicited by food competition and territorial defense; (c) did not change interspecies aggressive reactions; (d) facilitated acquisition of avoidance responses in a shuttle box; (e) increased locomotor activity and decreased latency of feeding behaviors in novel environments; and (f) resulted in an increase in locomotor activity in response to the introduction of shock in the shuttle box, in contrast to a decrease seen in controls. (20 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)