Fiber degeneration associated with hyperphagia-inducing knife cuts in the hypothalamus

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The pattern of axonal degeneration associated with hyperphagia-producing hypothalamic knife transections was investigated using the Fink-Heimer method for staining of degenerating axons and their terminal endings. Histological analysis of silver-stained material after parasagittal knife cuts which result in hyperphagia and obesity revealed fiber degeneration coursing longitudinally in the medial forebrain bundle including the perifornical component to reach the nucleus accumbens, the diagonal band, the preoptic-anterior hypothalamic junction, the lateral hypothalamus, the zona incerta, the periventricular thalamus, the parafascicular thalamic nucleus, the substantia nigra pars compacta, the central gray matter, the ventral tegmental area of T'sai and the superior colliculus. The data obtained in the present study lend support to the suggestion that projections coursing in the medial forebrain bundle interconnect the anteriomedial hypothalamus and the midbrain tegmentum and may underlie the hyperphagia and obesity produced by hypothalamic knife cuts. © 1980.

Publication Date

1-1-1980

Publication Title

Experimental Neurology

ISSN

00144886

E-ISSN

10902430

Volume

67

Issue

3

First Page

633

Last Page

645

PubMed ID

7353620

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1016/0014-4886(80)90132-6

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