The influence of stimulation of the hypothalamus on the choice of food during maintenance of rats on various salt and water diets.

Electrical stimulation of the lateral hypothalamus of rats maintained on a normal or salty diet with water deprivation leads to an increase in drinking excitability and to a decrease in the thresholds for salty food consumed. The stimulation promotes attenuation of the effects of the "mental" desalting of food that is achieved by a spatial co-placement of the nonsaltiness signal with salty reinforcement, and accelerates the conversion of the signal significance of the conditional stimuli associated with nonsalty and salty reinforcement as well. Electrical stimulation of the hypothalamus accelerates the formation of conditioned reflex aversion to salty food and the inhibition of conditioned reflexes in the direction of the corresponding food dispenser, and intensifies the existing state of thirst as well, imparting to it characteristics of a dominant motivation.