In rats, central administration of the neurotoxin 6-hydroxydopamine prevents hypertension and certain functional vascular changes after deoxycorticosterone (DOC)-salt treatment. In this study, the effect of electrolytic ablation of the area postrema on blood pressure and vascular reactivity in DOC-salt-treated rats was examined. Four treatment groups of rats were studied (n = 5 in each): area p...

The present study determined the effect of an electrolytic lesion of the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) on water intake and sodium appetite. Male Wistar rats weighing 290-320 g with a lesion of the DRN (L-DRN), performed two days before experiments and confirmed by histology at the end of the experiments, presented increased sensitivity to the dehydration induced by fluid deprivation. The cumulativ...

The nucleus of the solitary tract (NTS) is the primary site of the cardiovascular afferent information about arterial blood pressure and volume. The NTS projects to areas in the central nervous system involved in cardiovascular regulation and hydroelectrolyte balance, such as the anteroventral third ventricle region and the lateral parabrachial nucleus. The aim of the present study was to inves...

Head dipping (HD) is a behavioral pattern considered to have a risk assessment or an exploratory role and is used as a complementary parameter to evaluate anxiety in experimental animals. Since rats with electrolytic lesion in the area of the median raphe nucleus displayed high frequencies of HD in a previous study, the present investigation was undertaken to confirm this observation and to det...

This study addresses the origins of multi-whisker receptive fields of neurons in the thalamic ventral posterior medial (VPM) nucleus of the rat. We sought to determine whether multi-whisker receptive field synthesis occurs in VPM through convergent projections from the principalis (PrV) and interpolaris (SpVi) nuclei, or in PrV via intersubnuclear projections from the spinal trigeminal complex....

This study addresses the origins of multiwhisker-receptive fields of neurons in the thalamic ventral posterior medial (VPM) nucleus of the rat. We sought to determine whether multiwhisker-receptive field synthesis occurs in VPM through convergent projections from the principalis (PrV) and interpolaris (SpVi) nuclei, or in PrV by intersubnuclear projections from the spinal trigeminal complex. We...

Intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS) rewarding experience is known to modulate learning and memory and induce morphological and neurochemical changes in hippocampus. Therefore, we studied the effect of ICSS on the hippocampus-dependent operant and the spatial learning tasks in rats with bilateral electrolytic lesioning of fornix. Bilateral lesioning of fornix induced deficits in acquisition and...

  In the present study, the effect of contralateral and bilateral electrolytic lesions of the nucleus reticularis paragigantocellularis (PGi) on tonic pain was assessed in rats. Pain-related behavior was evaluated using the formalin test 7 days after the lesion was made. PGi lesions did not produce any marked changes in the early phase of the formalin test, but significantly increased pain sens...

Central pain syndrome (CPS) is defined as pain associated with a lesion of the CNS and is a common consequence of spinal cord injuries. We generated a rodent model of CPS by making unilateral electrolytic or demyelinating lesions centered on the spinothalamic tract in rats. Thermal hyperalgesia and mechanical allodynia occurred in both hind paws and forepaws by 7 d postlesion and were maintaine...

The authors explored the possibility that there are different neural consequences, beyond the primary site of brain damage, following perirhinal cortex (PRh) lesions made in different ways. Fos expression was used as a marker for neuronal activation and compared across the forebrains of rats that underwent the different types of surgery. Electrolytic and excitotoxic PRh lesions produced dramati...