Sympathetic activity and food intake of rats with ventromedial hypothalamic lesions.
Following ventromedial hypothalamic lesions, food intake increased from 60 to slightly more than 77 kcal/day during the first 6 days. Body weight increased and sympathetic activity, as measured by the electrical firing rate of efferent nerves to interscapular brown adipose tissue, decreased significantly. During a 6-day period of intragastric overfeeding in which animals with hypothalamic lesions received 60 kcal for the first day and 80 kcal for the remaining 5 days, the VMH-lesioned animals gained significantly more weight than the intact, sham-lesioned controls. This difference in weight gain was paralleled by the increased weight of liver and white adipose tissue. The lesioned animals showed a highly significant reduction in sympathetic activity compared to the normal or slightly increased values observed in the sham-lesioned animals. These studies are consistent with the hypothesis that food-induced increases in sympathetic activity are modulated by the ventromedial hypothalamus.
Sakaguchi
T
T
Department of Medicine, University of Southern California, School of Medicine, Los Angeles 90033.
Arase
K
K
Bray
G A
GA
D000818:Animals; D001835:Body Weight; D004435:Eating; D005260:Female; D007033:Hypothalamus, Middle / Q000503:physiopathology*; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains; D013564:Sympathetic Nervous System / Q000502:physiology*