Hormonal dissociation of limbic lesion effects on shuttle box avoidance in rats.

Rats with septal or hippocampal lesions, relative to normal rats, showed facilitated acquisition of a shuttle box avoidance response. The rats with septal lesions were also highly resistant to extinction compared with normal rats. When the same lesion effects were examined in hypophysectiomized rats, the animals with septal lesions continued to show facilitated performance, and those rats with hippocampal lesions performed no differently than nonoperated control animals. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the facilitated avoidance performance found in rats with hippocampal lesions is attributable to lesion-induced changes in hypophyseal activity, but similar changes induced by septal lesions are not.