Water and food intake and the inhibitory effect of amphetamine on drinking and eating before and after prefrontal lobotomy in dogs.

Abstract

Summary. A complete section through the forebrain through and just anterior to the orbital sulcus and directed well anterior to the caput of the caudate nucleus was not seen to primarily reduce the water intake of dogs or to cause any reduction in the amount of water drunk by the animals subsequent to the intravenous injection of a certain amount of hypertonic saline. The latter was temporarily the case in one animal where the lesion was extended in ventro‐caudal direction to involve the preoptic area on both sides. Amphetamine (1 mg per kg of body weight) completely inhibited the drinking of water after an intravenous injection of 20 cc of a 20 % NaCl solution in 4 of 5 normal dogs tested. This was no longer the case in 3 of these animals after “prefrontal lobotomy”. An incomplete section through the forebrain in 5 out of 8 dogs made that the dose of amphetamine necessary to inhibit, the food intake of the animals completely had to be increased by 50 to 100 %.