Psychosomatic Medicine 19:209-220 (1957)
© 1957 American Psychosomatic Society

Experimental Gastroduodenal Lesions Induced by Stimulation of the Brain

¹ Veterans Administration Hospital, Long Beach, Calif., and the Departments of Surgery and Anatomy, University of California School of Medicine at Los Angeles, Calif.

The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the effect upon the stomach and duodenum of chronically applied stimulation to the visceral brain stem.

Experiments were performed on 60 monkeys in which stimulation currents were delivered to the hypothalamus and surrounding regions for periods of 30 to 86 days.

A test group of 19 animals which received adequate stimulation was compared with control groups of 20 monkeys which received insufficient stimulation, 14 with inadequate stimulation, and 7 which developed destructive changes in the brain around the indwelling electrode. No animal in the control groups developed a focal lesion in the stomach or duodenum.

In the test group, 3 animals exhibited at autopsy focal lesions in the pyloric antrum, 3 had "ulcers" in the duodenum, and 2 had diffuse changes in the stomach.

All animals in the test group which developed gastroduodenal lesions had received excitation currents to a low midline axis in the hypothalamus. The remaining 11 animals in which visceral changes did not develop had been stimulated outside this central hypothalamic region.

The possible relationship of this experimentally induced hypothalamic dysfunction to the clinical "psychosomatic" disorder peptic ulceration has been discussed.