Disruption of food hoarding by injections of procaine into mediodorsal thalamus, GABA into subpallidal region and haloperidol into accumbens

doi:10.1016/0361-9230(88)90185-2

Brain Research Bulletin

Volume 20, Issue 2, February 1988, Pages 247-251

https://doi.org/10.1016/0361-9230(88)90185-2 Get rights and content

Abstract

The contributions of accumbens-subpallido-mediodorsal thalamus (MD) projections to food hoarding were investigated. The number of food pellets hoarded was reduced by bilateral injections of haloperidol into the accumbens, by bilateral injections of GABA into the subpallidal region and by bilateral injections of procaine into the mediodorsal thalamus. Food hoarding was not reduced by bilateral injections of procaine into the pedunculopontine nucleus. It appears that subpallido-mediodorsal thalamus projections are associated with hoarding behavior but not subpallido-pedunculopontine projections.

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Citation Excerpt :
Future experiments should determine whether the effects of diazepam on food deprivation-induced increases in food hoarding are due to diazepam-induced decreases in plasma glucocorticoids. In summary, the current study demonstrates that injection of the GABAA receptor agonist, diazepam blocks food deprivation-induced increases in food hoarding in female HFH Mongolian gerbils, similar to rats injected with diazepam (McNamara and Whishaw, 1990) or GABA (Mogenson and Wu, 1988). Because of the pattern of observed increases in Fos-ir, GABA activation in the brain reward circuitry appears to be important for the regulation of the behavioral response to fasting in HFH gerbils.
This article is part of a Special Issue “Energy Balance”. Effects of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) on food hoarding are unknown in rodents, and the effects of energy balance and GABA have not been evaluated in females. To evaluate the role of food deprivation and GABA on food hoarding, female Mongolian gerbils were given i.p. injection of diazepam (1 mg/kg and 3 mg/kg, respectively), a GABA_A receptor agonist. Among food-deprived females, there was a bimodal pattern in the frequency of gerbils with different levels of food hoarding. High food hoarding (HFH) and low food hoarding (LFH) gerbils were analyzed. Diazepam blocked food deprivation-induced food hoarding in HFH gerbils, but not in LFH gerbils. This blockade was associated with increased cellular activation in selected brain areas, such as the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), caudate putamen (CP) and ventral tegmental area (VTA), which suggested that direct activation of GABA in the brain reward circuitry decreased food hoarding in HFH females. Moreover, diazepam increased Fos expression in field CA₂ and CA₃ of the hippocampus, but had no significant effect on Fos expression in field CA₁ and dentate gyrus (DG) of the hippocampus, indicating that the hippocampus has area-specific effects on food hoarding in HFH gerbils. Diazepam did not alter food intake in both HFH and LFH gerbils. In addition, serum corticosterone concentrations were higher in the HFH than in the LFH ones. Together, these data indicated that food deprivation increased food hoarding in female gerbils, diazepam reduced food deprivation-induced food hoarding in HFH gerbils, and that GABA might influence food hoarding via classical reward circuitry via the mesolimbic dopamine system and specific hippocampal areas.
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Latent inhibition describes a process of learning to ignore stimuli of no consequence, and is disrupted in acute, positive-symptomatic schizophrenia. Understanding the neural basis of latent inhibition in animals may help to elucidate the neural dysfunction underlying positive schizophrenic symptoms in man. Evidence suggests a crucial role for dopamine transmission in the nucleus accumbens in the control of latent inhibition. The present studies investigated the role of the GABA-ergic efferent from the nucleus accumbens to the ventral pallidum in latent inhibition. The GABA_A agonist muscimol (4.56 ng/μl), and antagonist picrotoxin (0.2 μg/μl), were infused into the ventral pallidum, and effects on latent inhibition were assessed using a conditioned suppression procedure. Neither drug produced specific effects on latent inhibition when given alone and, in the case of muscimol, failed to reverse the disruption of latent inhibition induced by systemic amphetamine. In addition to significant non-specific drug effects, a positive control experiment revealed that intra-pallidal picrotoxin significantly enhanced locomotion, suggesting that our manipulations of ventral pallidal GABA function were behaviourally effective. We conclude that modulating ventral pallidal GABA transmission does not affect latent inhibition. The implications of this finding for theories of the neural circuitry mediating latent inhibition and for understanding the functional role of ventral pallidal GABA transmission are discussed.

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^☆: Supported by NSERC of Canada.

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ArticleDisruption of food hoarding by injections of procaine into mediodorsal thalamus, GABA into subpallidal region and haloperidol into accumbens☆

Abstract

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Physiol Behav

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Article
Disruption of food hoarding by injections of procaine into mediodorsal thalamus, GABA into subpallidal region and haloperidol into accumbens☆