Faculty Bibliography

We have previously shown that feeding induced by electrical stimulation in the lateral hypothalamus of rats is inhibited by naloxone but not its quaternary analogue. In the present study, effects of morphine and loperamide -an opiate that does not pass the blood-brain barrier- were examined. Loperamide inhibited stimulation-induced feeding; reversal of this effect by quaternary naloxone confirmed the peripheral site of action. A low dose of morphine (1.25 mg/kg) facilitated feeding but higher doses were inhibitory. An inhibitory dose of morphine became facilitory, however, when preceded by quaternary naloxone. It therefore appears that central opioid activity promotes ingestive behavior while peripheral activity inhibits ingestion. To evaluate the function served by the central facilitory process, we exploited the relation that exists between feeding and self-stimulation elicited through a common electrode. It was found that potentiation of self-stimulation by food deprivation is blocked by naloxone. It is concluded that endogenous opioid activity may promote feeding by enhancing the reward value of food as a function of hunger

Phospholipids in red blood cells (RBCs) of schizophrenics and controls were determined. Three different RBC preparations and two different extraction methods were used. Phospholipids were separated by thin layer chromatography and by high pressure liquid chromatography, and were quantified by phosphorus analysis and by ultraviolet absorption. Findings were consistent with values previously reported for normals. However, in contrast to recent reports of elevated phosphatidylserine levels in schizophrenics' RBCs, we observed no differences between populations

Rats were trained to press a lever to escape electrical stimulation of the nucleus reticularis gigantocellularis and to obtain stimulation of the lateral hypothalamus. Morphine sulfate and ethylketocyclazocine (EKC) both elevated the intensity of stimulation required to sustain escape at doses which did not affect self-stimulation. Parallel dose-response lines were obtained for the two opioid agonists but the effect of EKC was more resistant to naloxone antagonism. These results suggest that both mu-and chi-sub-types of opiate receptor mediate the inhibition of supraspinally-elicited aversion

Hypothalamic stimulation in rats both reduces escape from noxious hindbrain stimulation and sustains self-administration only when hindbrain stimulation is inescapable. Self-administration reflects an aversion-ameliorative action of brain stimulation and not a positive reinforcement process. The psychophysical testing used is offered as a model for establishing the analgesic properties of brain stimulation

A monophasic pulse-pair stimulation technique was used behaviorally to infer neurophysiological interaction between 'reward' sites in the lateral hypothalamus (LH) and pain-implicated nucleus reticularis gigantocellularis (NGC). Rats lever-pressed for 3 s escapes from an otherwise continuous train of 0.1 ms NGC pulses delivered every 40 ms. When pulses to the LH were interdigitated with those to NGC, inter-response latencies were significantly longer. This occurred whether LH pulses were also interrupted by each lever-press (experiment 1) or not (experiment 2). Further, the same intensities of LH stimulation which inhibited escape supported high rates of lever-pressing for 3 s LH trains during inescapable NGC stimulation even though these LH trains were not of sufficient intensity to support 'rewarding' lever-pressing in the absence of NGC stimulation. This finding indicates that escape-inhibition in the first two experiments was not due to interfering motor effects of LH stimulation but most probably due to LH amelioration of NGC-induced aversion. Indeed, when aversion was ameliorated by morphine, lever-pressing for sub-reward-threshold LH stimulation during inescapable NGC stimulation decreased although classical self-stimulation did not. In the escape experiments, inhibition was greatest when each NGC pulse was preceded by an LH pulse at an interval of 0.1 or 10 ms. During inescapable NGC stimulation, rates of lever-pressing for LH trains were greatest when LH pulses preceded NGC pulses again at intervals of 0.1 or 10 ms. This congruence of the temporal bimodal profiles in the response functions of these two different behavioral experiments strongly suggests that the same integrative mechanism underlies both LH inhibition of NGC escape and lever-pressing for LH trains during inescapable stimulation of NGC. Since gastric loading did not alter lever-pressing for sub-reward-threshold LH trains during inescapable NGC stimulation but did inhibit classical self-stimulation, it was concluded that the inferred common integrative mechanism mediates a supraspinal gating of aversion which is independent of the LH self-stimulation reward process

In stable schizophrenic outpatients with predominantly 'defect state' symptomatology amphetamine caused a reduction in negative symptoms that was statistically significant but not complete (i.e. these symptoms remained clinically discernible). The possibility that dopaminergic hypofunction contributes some elements to the schizophrenic defect state is presented, along with some limited data compatible with this concept. These findings are compared to prior studies in recently hospitalized schizophrenic subjects, and discussed with respect to recent theoretical concepts regarding the role of dopamine in schizophrenic psychopathology