HYPERPHAGIA AND OBESITY IN FEMALE RATS WITH TEMPORAL-LOBE LESIONS

Damage to the temporal lobes in cats, dogs, and primates has long been known to result in hyperphagia and obesity, but research into the rol e of this area of the brain in feeding behavior has largely been negle cted because of an inability to produce similar results in rats. The p resent study reports hyperphagia and obesity in female rats with small electrolytic lesions centered in the posterodorsal amygdala. Daily fo od intake more than doubled in the first few days after surgery and me an weight gain was more than four times that observed in animals with sham lesions during the first 26 days. The rats with lesions were not hyperresponsive to a switch in diets (lab chow to high-fat, and back). In all animals that gained abnormal amounts of weight, the posterior extent of the lesions extended through the amygdalohippocampal area in to the ventral hippocampal formation. The results suggest that the tem poral lobe is an important extrahypothalamic site for the regulation o f food intake in rodents.