Electrolytic lesions of the lateral hypothalamus (LH) are known to produce severe and chronic behavioral and electrographic abnormalities. In order to assess the effects of damage to LH cells vs damage to fibers of passage in the LH, a comparison was made of the effects of electrolytic lesions and microinjections of the neurotoxin kainic acid (kainate) in the LH. Behavior and neocortical and hippocampal electroencephalographic (EEG) activity were studied before, immediately after, and for 25 days after the lesions were made. Electrolytic-lesioned rats were aphagic and adipsic, showed an absence of normal atropine-resistant EEG activity, and a release of atropine-sensitive EEG activity in the hippocampus and neocortex. Kainic acid-lesioned rats showed some similar behavioral impairments but the kainate lesions produced different EEG abnormalities, including chronic slow-wave and seizure activity in both the neocortex and hippocampus. Following extended recovery hippocampal EEG was normal despite extensive cellular loss in areas CA3 and CA4. Understanding of the differences in EEG between the electrolytic and kainate effects was compounded by widespread cellular damage in areas outside the hypothalamus in the rats with kainate lesions. Thus, the kainate-produced abnormalities precluded a simple analysis of the contribution that cell damage alone makes to LH lesion-induced behavioral and EEG changes.