INCREASED FOOD-INTAKE AND BODY-WEIGHT GAIN AFTER LATERAL HYPOTHALMIC DOPAMINERGIC CELL IMPLANTATION

To examine our hypothesis that dopamine activity in the lateral hypoth alamic area (LHA) may play a role in enhancing the process of eating, a fetal cell suspension of predominantly dopaminergic cells was bilate rally transplanted into the LHA of study rats via direct injection; co ntrols had carrier medium injection. Thereafter, mean daily food intak e was 1 g per day greater in dopaminergic cell. transplanted rats vs. controls for each day of the 10-week observation period. This resulted in a significantly greater cumulative body weight gain in study rats vs. controls (386+/-5.1 g vs. 354+/-3.8 g, respectively). On sacrifice at the end of the study, transplanted cells in the LHA were viable. O ur data suggest that bilateral LHA dopaminergic cell transplant which presumably resulted in chronically and persistently enhanced dopaminer gic activity in the LHA is associated with overeating and consequently , an excess weight gain.