FUNCTIONAL ASYMMETRY OF THE MEDIAL HYPOTHALAMUS OF RABBITS DURING AVOIDANCE

Thresholds of avoidance reactions and changes in correlated neuronal a ctivity in the visual and sensorimotor cortical areas were studied in rabbits under conditions of stimulation of right (RH) and left (LK) me dial hypothalamus. Avoidance threshold were lower during stimulation o f the LH (112 +/- 12 mcA) than during stimulation of the RH (166 +/- 2 2 mcA). The stimulation of LH was more effective in inducing reorganiz ation in correlated activity of neurons: only after the left stimulati on (inducing active avoidance) the number of neuronal pairs with corre lated activity in the left,hemisphere increased (49%) and delays up to 120 ms appeared between the discharges of visual and sensorimotor cor tical neurons (the first one led). The obtained evidence suggests the more important role of the LH than RH in motivation.