Dopamine agonists induce recovery from surgically-induced septal rage

ALTHOUGH recovery of function following brain damage has long been known to occur, the mechanisms involved are not completely understood¹. Of relevance to this problem are reports of pharmacological facilitation of recovery from brain damage in humans² and from experimentally-induced nervous system lesions in animals^3-9. We have previously reported that L-dopa injections produce a dramatic and apparently permanent abolition of the hyper-reactivity or rage syndrome that results from surgical damage to the septal nuclei of the rat forebrain¹⁰. Independent confirmation of this finding has also appeared¹¹. We report here that other dopamine agonists share this ability to attenuate or abolish the septal rage syndrome (SRS).