Dopamine release from the nucleus accumbens shell before, during, and after licking 0.3 M sucrose expressed as a percentage of prestimulus baseline. Dopamine was collected by microdialysis in 20-min samples and measured with high performance liquid chromatography. The dotted lines indicate the sample taken during sucrose licking. Statistically significance differences from baseline (p < 0.05) are indicated by asterisks. A. Concentration-response functions using 0.03 M, 0.1 M, and 0.3 M sucrose during sham feeding. Only one solution was tested per day, but most rats were tested over at least 2 days and thus licked more than one concentration. B. Sham feeding a fixed volume of either 0.03 M or 0.3 M sucrose. The volume was 75% of the average that the rats ingested of the 0.03 M stimulus during a 20 min sham feeding session. C. The effect of central gustatory lesions on dopamine release in nucleus accumbens while ingesting 0.3 M sucrose. Abbreviations: PBNx – Bilateral lesions of the parabrachial nuclei; Sham. Op. - Combined data from 2 groups of full surgical controls; TTAx – Bilateral lesions centered on the thalamic taste relay. The data are published elsewhere in a different form [23, 44].