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Lesion studies targeting food‐anticipatory activity
Author(s) -
Davidson Alec J.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
european journal of neuroscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.346
H-Index - 206
eISSN - 1460-9568
pISSN - 0953-816X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2009.06961.x
Subject(s) - neuroscience , circadian rhythm , lesion , hypothalamus , suprachiasmatic nucleus , biology , medicine , pathology
Behavior ablation remains a powerful, if not cutting‐edge, approach for localization of function within the nervous system. The initial discovery of the suprachiasmatic nuclei as the site of the mammalian light‐entrainable circadian pacemaker is owed to this approach. Food‐anticipatory activity (FAA), an output of a putative feeding‐entrainable circadian pacemaker, is a behavior that has been surprisingly resilient to elimination by surgical lesion. Here we review this literature, with particular attention paid to recent studies aimed at defining the role of the dorsomedial hypothalamus in the generation of FAA. This literature is fraught with examples of inconsistent results among lesion studies, which in some cases can be accounted for by varied endpoint measures. The site of the feeding‐entrainable circadian pacemaker, if it resides in a discrete structure at all, remains unknown.