Hypothalamus

• 1. Detects elevated body temperature and triggers cooling mechanisms (you lose most of you head through your head which is the most anterior portion of your anatomy)
• 2. Stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system

Produces Dopamine and other releasing factors that affect the anterior hypothalamus

This is the appetite stimulation center.  If there is a lesion in the lateral hypothalamus, an animal will lose the desire to eat.

Synthesizes and releases Gonadotropin Releasing Hormone.

Synthesizes Oxytocin

Controls body temperature by regulating heat conservation (you store fat which is insulating in your posterior)

Transition between sleep and wake

Secretion of histamine to the cortex

Regulates circadian rhythms

Secretes ADH

The satiety center.  Lesions of the ventromedial hypothalamus will cause an animal to get fat.