Recovery of salt appetite after lateral hypothalamic lesions: Effects of preoperative salt drive and salt intake experiences.

75 male mongrel rats were divided into lateral hypothalamic (LH)-lesion or intact control groups. The LH-lesion groups (1) had no salt experience prior to induction of lesions, (2) had experience of both salt drive and saline intake, (3) had salt drive but no saline experience, or (4) had no salt drive experience but saline intake experience. Results confirm earlier findings that preoperative salt experiences can protect the rat against the usual deficit in regulatory salt intake that follows such lesions. However, results suggest that there may be no specific feature of the preoperative salt experience that is critical for the protective effect, since both salt drive experience without concomitant salt intake experience and salt intake experience without concomitant salt drive experience were effective. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)