Control of water intake: evidence for the role of a hemodynamic pontine pathway.

Hypovolemia increases water intake. Bilateral lesions of a discrete region of the dorsal rostral pons, that contains neurons responding to hypovolemia, markedly increases basal water intake in cats. The critical region appears anteroventral and somewhat medial to the locus coeruleus and is anatomically distinct from a more dorsal region shown previously as essential for compensation of arterial pressure in response to hypovolemia.