Destruction of noradrenergic innervation to the paraventricular nucleus: deficits in food intake, macronutrient selection, and compensatory eating after food deprivation.

Norepinephrine (NE) injected into the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) has a stimulatory effect on feeding behavior and is found to selectively enhance preference for carbohydrate in the rat. The present experiments were conducted to assess the impact of chronic depletion of NE within the PVN on food intake and appetite regulation. The catecholamine (CA) neurotoxin, 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA), when administered into the PVN, produced a significant depletion of PVN NE in association with a variety of behavioral changes. The immediate consequence of the neurotoxin lesion was a dramatic increase in 24-hr food intake, attributed predominantly to a preferential increase in carbohydrate and fat consumption. The long-term effects related to CA depletion were a deficit in daily food consumption, particularly of carbohydrate (-42%). Although animals with diminished PVN NE maintained a normal diurnal feeding pattern, they failed to exhibit the increased ingestion of an energy-rich carbohydrate diet which rats normally show during the dark period of the diurnal cycle. Rats injected with 6-OHDA directly into the PVN exhibited a normal response to glucoprivic challenge, but demonstrated a deficit in their ability to produce compensatory feeding, particularly of carbohydrate and fat, in response to food deprivation. These findings suggest a specific function for PVN noradrenergic mechanisms in normal energy repletion when body energy stores are reduced.