Corticofugal effects on the neuronal activity in the emotiogenic/motivational zones of the hypothalamus

Neuronal responses to stimulation of the proreal (field 8) and cingular (field 24) cortices, pyriform lobe (periamygdalar cortex), and hippocampus (CA3) were studied in the lateral (HL) and ventromedial (Hvm) hypothalamus, dorsal hypothalamic region (aHd), and projection region of the medial forelimb bundle (MFB); single and repeated (series of a 6–300 sec⁻¹ frequency) stimuli were used. At single stimulations, the minimum proportion of inhibitory responses with respect to excitatory effects was observed when the neocortex (the proreal gyrus) was stimulated; this proportion became successively greater at stimulations of the intermediate cortex (the cingular gyrus) and paleocortex (the pyriform cortex), while stimulation of the archicortex (the hippocampus) evoked mostly inhibitory responses. At repeated stimulation of the cortical structures, inhibitory responses prevailed in the neurons under study: their total number was nearly four times larger than that of excitatory reactions. The response patterns to single and serial stimulations of the cortical structures allowed us to demonstrate: (i) significant diversity of the influences received by hypothalamic neurons from the cortical structures and (ii) the dependence of the pattern of these influences on the phylogenetic specificity of the above structures.