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Neural systems for early independent ingestion: regional metabolic changes during ingestive responding and dehydration.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Hall, WG
Published in: Behavioral neuroscience
April 1989

The ingestive behavior of young rodents, studied independently of the mother and suckling, provides a system for the developmental analysis of the neurobiology of feeding and drinking. In these experiments regional neural metabolic activity, as assessed by semiquantitative deoxyglucose (DG) autoradiography, was related to dehydration and ingestive behavior in 6-day-old rat pups. During simple ingestive responding, changes in relative DG uptake, representative of changes in neural metabolic activity, occurred primarily in hindbrain sensory and motor nuclei. Producing cellular dehydration resulted in activity changes primarily in the basal forebrain. When pups were dehydrated and allowed to ingest during the DG-uptake period, activity changes were seen in both the hindbrain and forebrain areas that responded to ingestion or dehydration alone as well as in regions that were not affected by either manipulation alone. These latter changes, which result from an interaction of behavioral and physiological stimuli, call attention to areas that may subserve motivational aspects of behavior. Extracellular dehydration was found to produce fewer and different forebrain responses in neural metabolic activity. During ingestion, the only effects of extracellular dehydration that overlapped with those of cellular dehydration appeared in circumventricular hypothalamic regions and brain stem motor nuclei. Thus, there appeared to be only a limited final common pathway for these two types of dehydration-induced drinking. Taken together, these findings in infant rats depict distributed neural systems subserving ingestion and responding to state change. They provide a starting point early in ontogeny for the developmental analysis of neural substrates of ingestive systems.

Duke Scholars

Published In

Behavioral neuroscience

DOI

EISSN

1939-0084

ISSN

0735-7044

Publication Date

April 1989

Volume

103

Issue

2

Start / End Page

386 / 411

Related Subject Headings

  • Water-Electrolyte Balance
  • Thirst
  • Sucking Behavior
  • Rats, Inbred Strains
  • Rats
  • Male
  • Hunger
  • Female
  • Energy Metabolism
  • Deoxyglucose
 

Citation

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Hall, W. G. (1989). Neural systems for early independent ingestion: regional metabolic changes during ingestive responding and dehydration. Behavioral Neuroscience, 103(2), 386–411. https://doi.org/10.1037//0735-7044.103.2.386
Hall, W. G. “Neural systems for early independent ingestion: regional metabolic changes during ingestive responding and dehydration.Behavioral Neuroscience 103, no. 2 (April 1989): 386–411. https://doi.org/10.1037//0735-7044.103.2.386.
Hall, W. G. “Neural systems for early independent ingestion: regional metabolic changes during ingestive responding and dehydration.Behavioral Neuroscience, vol. 103, no. 2, Apr. 1989, pp. 386–411. Epmc, doi:10.1037//0735-7044.103.2.386.

Published In

Behavioral neuroscience

DOI

EISSN

1939-0084

ISSN

0735-7044

Publication Date

April 1989

Volume

103

Issue

2

Start / End Page

386 / 411

Related Subject Headings

  • Water-Electrolyte Balance
  • Thirst
  • Sucking Behavior
  • Rats, Inbred Strains
  • Rats
  • Male
  • Hunger
  • Female
  • Energy Metabolism
  • Deoxyglucose