Elsevier

Physiology & Behavior

Volume 6, Issue 4, April 1971, Pages 321-329
Physiology & Behavior

Aggression elicited by electrical stimulation of the hypothalamus in albino rats

https://doi.org/10.1016/0031-9384(71)90163-6Get rights and content

Abstract

Stimulus-bound mouse-killing was elicited in normally nonaggressive albino rats by electrical stimulation of discrete hypothalamic areas above the optic tract, around the fornix, and at the lateral border of the ventromedial nucleus. Two forms of attack—affective and quiet-biting—could be defined behaviorally. During affective attack, rats would kill mice and bite other rats but would not bite dead mice. During quiet-biting attack, rats would bite live or dead mice but would not attack other rats. Rats would self-stimulate for current intensities and durations that produced quiet-biting attack but would escape stimulation that produced affective attack. Rats exhibiting quiet-biting attack would readily gnaw and eat food pellets when mice were not available. Other rats that initially ate food during hypothalamic stimulation would not attack mice despite prolonged experience with no other goal object than mice. Stimulus-bound quiet-biting attack was more easily obtained from rats that exhibited some spontaneous mouse-killing than from rats that did not. The ease of obtaining quiet-biting attack by stimulation of the hypothalamus thus seems to interact with the endogenous disposition of rats to kill mice.

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    This report, as well as the two reports [20, 21], constitute part of a dissertation conducted at and submitted to the University of Massachusetts in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Ph.D. degree. I thank J. Trowill, J. Ayers, N. Carlson and T. Sargent for their advice during the course of this work and M. Carlson for assistance with histology. The research was partially supported by USPHS Grant MH-13155 awarded to J. Trowill.

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