Postnatal development of sensory influences on lateral hypothalamic neurons of the rat

Extracellular unitary records were obtained from neurons in the lateral hypothalamic area (LHA) of very young (1-25 days of postnatal age) and adult rats. Spontaneous unitary activity and evoked responses to external sensory (somatosensory, gustatory and olfactory) and internal sensory (administration of hypertonic saline and glucose solutions) stimulation were determined in these neurons in order to assess their functional development. The basic electrophysiological characteristics of LHA neurons were established prenatally. From the day of birth, many LHA neurons had: (1) spontaneous spike generation; (2) evoked responses to external and internal sensory stimulation; and (3) convergent sensory inputs. However, each of these neurophysiological properties was modified considerably during postnatal ontogenesis: (4) spontaneous activity of LHA neurons with evoked responses to sensory stimulation increased with age; (5) internal sensory influences tended to diminish while evoked response magnitude and complexity were augmented developmentally; and (6) convergence of sensory influences decreased in older rats. This developmental 'fine tuning' of the functional features of LHA neurons is important because their maturation coincides with certain 'critical periods' of LHA ontogenesis demonstrated in behavioral, morphological, pharmacological and experimental brain damage reports.