STABILITY OF BEHAVIOR PRODUCED BY ELECTRICAL STIMULATION OF RAT HYPOTHALAMUS

The view that the hypothalamus is organized into specific neural systems for the control of feeding, drinking, mating, etc. is reviewed within the content of our work on the copulation-reward effects of electrical stimulation in the posterior hypothalamus. Evidence is presented for both specificity of behavior produced by electrical stimulation and the instability of that behavior over extended testing. Discussion of these and similar results reported in the literature focuses on possible interactions among several variables in both the production and subsequent modification of elicited behavior. These variables reflect the nature of the neural systems being studied and the techniques used in the study. © 1969 S. Karger AG, Basel.