Subfornical organ connectivity and drinking to captopril or carbachol in rats

These experiments were conducted to test whether drinking to ip captopril or to intraventricular carbachol requires an intact fiber system from the ventral subfornical organ (SFO). Wire-knife cuts were made through the wall of the third ventricle ventral to the SFO. Control rats had either sham lesions or histologically identified missed cuts. Rats with good cuts (a) drank less than either control group after ip injections of 4 mg/kg captopril, (b) drank normal amounts of 0.3 M NaCl solution when captopril was placed in the drinking water at 0.1 mg/ml, (c) drank less water but a normal amount of saline after 6 mg/kg captopril ip and 10 mg/kg furosemide diuretic ip, and (d) drank normal amounts of water after lateral ventricular injections of 1.2 or 4 nmol of carbachol. The results of the captopril experiments confirm predictions based on studies of SFO lesions and suggest that captopril causes water, but not saline, drinking via an angiotensin-related mechanism acting at the SFO. The carbachol experiment indicates either that the SFO is not a unique receptor site for ventricular carbachol or that the fibers mediating this response do not require the pathways through the ventral pole of the SFO.