Recovery of hyperreactivity in rats with simultaneous septal and subcortical lesions

Psychometric properties of King's Rodent Emotionality Rating Scale

King's (1958) Rodent Emotionality Rating Scale has been used extensively as a measure of the effects of such experimental procedures as septal lesions. It has also been suggested that the King scale is appropriate for a variety of applications in laboratory activities for introductory physiological psychology and for studies with normal animals. Given this extent of potential use, a series of studies were undertaken to investigate the psychometric properties of this scale. The psychometric properties were generally adequate for instructional use, but perhaps less adequate for research, with a 5-day test-retest reliability of .84, and internal consistency coefficients in the range of .53 to .77 in several studies. Item analyses raise some minor questions about the scale. Significant differences were found between the scores obtained by experienced and inexperienced raters when viewing the same videotaped administration of the scale.

The inhibitory modulation of agonistic behavior in the rat brain: a review

Neural regions which exercise an inhibitory influence on agonistic behavior are identified by the enhancement of agonistic behavior that follows their removal. The specific kinds of agonistic behaviors altered by each region are then examined. Increased reactivity to the experimenter and enhanced shock-induced fighting are produced by lesions of the region ventral to the anterior septum, the lateral septum, the medial hypothalamus, and the dorsal and median raphe nuclei. It is argued that the increased reactivity and shock-induced fighting correspond to an enhancement of defensive behavior. Mouse killing is induced by lesions of the anterior olfactory nucleus, the region ventral to the anterior septum, the lateral septum, the medial hypothalamus, the dorsal and median raphe nuclei, and the medial amygdala. Because the lesion-induced mouse killing is similar to that emitted by spontaneous mouse killers, it is argued that these regions normally exert an inhibitory control over predatory killing. The available evidence on social attack behavior has not convincingly identified regions exerting an inhibitory control over this dimension of behavior. Our conclusion is that separate brain systems exert an inhibitory control over defensive behavior, predatory killing, and social attack behavior. To a substantial extent, the regions modulating these behaviors appear to act independently of one another. The only neurotransmitter that is clearly active in these inhibitory systems is serotonin, and has only been directly implicated in the control of mouse killing by neurons originating in the dorsal and median raphe nuclei.