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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1991

Genotype, feeding regimen, and diet interactions in meat chickens. 2. Feeding behavior.

Feeding behaviors were compared for males from two lines of meat chickens differing in growth potential fed lower and higher density diets ad libitum either daily or on alternate days. Males from the faster growing line ate and drank more often but stood and rested less often than those from the slower growing line. Rate of feed intake per unit BW was, however, similar for both lines. Greater crop and lower intestinal contents of the faster growing line suggested a higher feed intake and storage ability. Even though males fed the lower energy diet initially consumed similar amounts of ME on days of food restoration, by 24 h they lagged behind those fed the higher energy diet, suggesting capacity of the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) to be a limiting factor in energy consumption. At older ages, chicks fed the different diets had similar GIT contents, suggesting that excessive eating and less resting observed for males fed the lower density diet contributed to their poorer energy utilization. On the day of feed restoration, males fed on alternate days ate and stood more often and had poorer GIT clearance than those with feed continuously made accessible to them.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

Technical note: a computerized system for monitoring feeding behavior and individual feed intake of dairy cattle.

The objective of this study was to develop and validate a computerized system to monitor feeding behavior and feed intake of loose-housed dairy cattle. The system consisted of 28 scales located in front of each self-locking place of a regular feedbunk. All cows had access to all scales indifferently. Each visit to the feedbunk was monitored by a transponder in the ear of each cow that was detected by a proximity reader located at the top right corner of each headlock. The data from the scales and the proximity readers were continuously recorded by a computer with an average scanning time of 3.5 s. The monitoring system was validated using all 28 feeding places and 51 lactating cows in a series of 4-h observations during 5 different d. During the observation periods, for each feeder, 2 observers recorded the cow number and the exact time of the visit. The observed data were then compared with the computer records. To validate the ability of the system to monitor feed consumption, on separate days, the amount of feed consumed by a cow during a visit was also measured manually with an external scale, and the feed that disappeared from each scale in 2 different 24-h periods was compared with the sum of feed consumed in each scale during these 2 periods. The average time spent in a given scale by each cow determined by direct observations was similar to that determined by the computer. The system was accurate and showed a high specificity (98.8%) and sensitivity (99.6%) for cow detections. Feed weights determined by the computer system were similar to those measured manually with an external scale, implying that the system was also accurate in measuring individual intake weights. In conclusion, the system provided a reasonable estimate of the number of visits per animal, length of each visit, amount of feed consumed per visit and animal, the total amount of feed consumed daily by each animal, and the rate at which animals consume feed.

Animals↗
PubMed1975

Role of sensory factors in chewing and feeding behavior.

Since feeding behavior has a complex physiological background, in the physiology of feeding behavoir not only the mechanisms in the hypothalamus, but also input and output physiologic factors which stimulate and/or inhibit the central network for feeding and aversion behavior, must be considered. Normal feeding and aversion behavior are accomplished by a series of highly co-ordinated physiological functions involving various parts of the body, and humoral, hormonal, metabolic, and sensory and motor functions for feeding behavior must be well considered from a wider wiew point. For this purpose, morphological, biochemical, and neurophysiological extensive approaches to study the feeding behavior mechanisms are essentially important. In the present paper, neurophysiological network concerning feeding and aversion behavior was under discussion. Particularly, relations between input, central and output factors for these behaviors were considered. As an input factor, a role of the nerve impulses of the chorda tympani and lingual nerves was evaluated. As a central factor, involvement of the neurons in the cortical taste area was discussed, and response patterns of cortical taste neurons to negative and positive taste information was analyzed with regard to taste perception mechanisms. In addition, mechanisms in the posterior hypothalamus for the taste aversion behavior were explained through ablation and recording techniques in the rat; and the neuromuscular mechanisms of chewing, which complete the feeding behavior, were also discussed. Importance of such comprehensive systematic approach to proper understanding of feeding and aversion behaviors was emphasized.

Animals↗
PubMed2001

KO's and organisation of peptidergic feeding behavior mechanisms.

Feeding behavior results from complex interactions arising between numerous neuromediators, including classical neurotransmitters and neuropeptides present in hypothalamic networks. One way to unravel these complex mechanisms is to examine animal models with a deletion of genes coding for the different neuropeptides involved in the regulation of feeding. The aim of this review is to focus on feeding and body weight regulation in mice lacking neuropeptide Y (NPY), melanocortins (POMC), corticotropin-releasing hormone, melanin-concentrating hormone, or bombesin-like peptides respectively. The phenotypes, which relate to the deletion of gene coding for the peptides, rarely include changes in body weight and food intake, indicating therefore the existence of redundant mechanisms to compensate for the loss of the peptide. The phenotype is much more marked when the gene deletion is targeted towards the functioning of the peptidergic machinery, e.g. the receptors and especially the POMC and NPY receptors, as well as one subtype of bombesin receptor (BRS-3). These knockout models are also interesting when examining the role of environmental and social factors in the determination of feeding behavior. They have granted us better knowledge of all these integrated and complex mechanisms. Moreover, they are also valuable tools for pharmacological studies when specific antagonists are lacking. From the information obtained by the study of knockouts, it is possible to determine certain targets for selective drugs that could be efficient for the pharmacological treatment of obesity. However, at the present state of our knowledge, it seems necessary to target several peptides in order to get good results with weight loss. It will also be imperative to associate these multitherapies with changes in eating and behavioral habits, in order to obtain complete effectiveness and long-lasting results.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

Role of 5-HT1A and 5-HT1B receptors in the hypophagic effect of 5-HT on the structure of feeding behavior.

BACKGROUND: Feeding behavior is deeply affected by serotonergic neurotransmission. This regulatory activity is mediated mainly by specific 5-HT1/2 receptors, and the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) plays a key role in this phenomena. In order to reveal the involvement of 5-HT1A and 5-HT1B receptors in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN) on serotonin-induced hypophagia, we examined the effects of intra-PVN injections of serotonin in WAY 100635 or SB 216641-pretreated rats on the structure of feeding behavior. MATERIAL/METHODS: Male Wistar rats were kept at 21+/-1 degrees C with a 12 h light /dark cycle on a self-selection feeding paradigm, provided with freely available and separate sources of protein, carbohydrate, fat and water. Blockade of 5-HT1A or 5-HT1B receptors in the paraventricular nucleus was effected by WAY 100635 (2 microg) or SB-216641 (2 microg) pretreatment; ten minutes later, 5-HT (2 microg) was applied into the same nucleus, then food intake and meal patterns were measured in a 30-minute period. The behavioral test was conducted at the beginning of the dark phase. RESULTS: The suppressive effect of 5-HT on carbohydrate intake was blocked by both WAY 100635 and SB 216641 at the beginning of the active (dark) feeding period. CONCLUSIONS: The hypophagic effect induced by 5-HT requires activation of 5-HT1A and 5-HT1B receptors, and the specific contribution of these subtype receptors is different, since the 5-HT1A subtype showed higher behavioral selectivity.

Animals↗
PubMed2001

Mouse feeding behavior: ethology, regulatory mechanisms and utility for mutant phenotyping.

Ingestive behaviors, feeding and drinking, constitute unconditioned, obligatory functions that are tightly regulated in the rodent according to demands of the external and internal milieu. Dependent measures of food intake have been used extensively in rats to infer the identity and function of neurochemical pathways, which mediate energy balance. A recent interest in application of appetitive measures in mice can be attributed jointly to the discovery of novel markers of energy balance in genetically obese mice as well as systematic targeting of known feeding regulatory pathways in bioengineered mutant mice. Accordingly, this review will attempt to provide the reader interested in behavioral phenotyping of knockout or transgenic mice with information regarding the ethology of mouse eating behavior, known mechanisms of appetitive regulation and examples of successes and pitfalls encountered when studying food intake in mutant mice.

Animals↗
PubMed1987

Behavioral feeding specialization in Pinaroloxias inornata, the "Darwin's Finch" of Cocos Island, Costa Rica.

As a population, Cocos Finches exhibit a broad range of feeding behaviors spanning those of several families of birds on the mainland, while individuals feed as specialists year-round. Although this extreme intraspecific variability occurs as predicted in a tropical oceanic island environment, these specializations challenge contemporary ecological theory in that they are not attributable to individual differences in age, sex, gross morphology, or opportunistic exploitation of patchy resources. Instead, they appear to originate and be maintained behaviorally, possibly via observational learning. This phenomenon adds another direction to the evolutionary radiation of the Darwin's Finches and underscores the necessity for detailed behavioral and ecological studies at the individual level for understanding animal feeding systems and the causation of phenotypic variation.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2002

Putting behavior back into feeding behavior: a tribute to George Collier.

In an attempt to explain my failure to find any correlation between meal size and intermeal intervals in free-feeding rats, George Collier, my mentor, suggested that perhaps eating behavior had strong extra-physiological determinants, a heretical idea that had an enormous impact on my subsequent research. After moving to Cornell University, my students and I began a series of studies, first with animals, then with humans, all of which supported George's idea. We observed that, under our test conditions, humans (a) do not respond to overfeeding by reducing their food intake, (b) do not change the amount they consume at meals when snacks or breakfasts are added or subtracted from their daily intake, (c) do not change the amount they eat when the energy density of their food is changed, (d) nor do they increase their intake following a semi or total fast for 24 h. They also increase the amount they consume proportionally to the amount of food they are served, the variety of foods offered, and the number of people with whom they eat. The combination of these data with George's insightful idea, has merged into a modification of the popular Set-Point Theory of the regulation of body weight. The alternative "Settling Zone" Theory suggests that whereas biology may determine a range of body weights (adiposity) that are maintained fairly constant for long periods of time, within this "zone", the behaviors responsible for controlling energy intake and energy expenditure are influenced primarily by environmental and cognitive stimuli. The size of the "Settling Zone" is not currently known, but if it is 10% or greater, then efforts to identify and understand the environmental and cognitive stimuli that influence body weight may produce advances that will reduce our high rates of overweight and obesity.

Animals↗
PubMed1986

Chemosensory stimuli in feeding behavior of the leech Hirudo medicinalis.

The involvement of chemotherapy stimuli in the feeding behavior of the blood-sucking leech Hirudo medicinalis was investigated using a behavioral feeding test in which test solutions were encased in a highly permeable membrane and presented to the leech. Whole human blood or plasma at ambient temperature elicited the complete sequence of feeding behavior: probing, attachment, biting and ingestion. Spring water, 300 mM sucrose, or dialyzed plasma did not elicit any of these responses. Spring water warmed to 38 degrees C elicited probing and transient attachment but not ingestion. Thus, appropriate chemical stimuli were necessary for complete feeding behavior. A chemically defined artificial blood mix, containing the major components of low molecular weight found in blood, elicited all aspects of leech feeding behavior. Eliminating either NaCl or arginine from the mix resulted in complete loss of effectiveness. Moreover, a solution containing only NaCl (150 mM) and arginine (90 microM) was also an effective feeding stimulus. Thus, appropriate chemical stimuli are sufficient for complete feeding behavior. Neither NaCl nor arginine alone induced feeding although NaCl alone elicited probing. Sensory detection of blood was localized to a region of the dorsal lip that contains structures composed of ciliated, bipolar neurons, which are likely candidates as chemoreceptors. Surgical ablation of this region of the skin resulted in complete loss of ability to alert to, orient toward and ingest blood, while sham-operated controls fed normally. Substitution with other ions revealed specificity, with respect to both the cation and the anion, in the response to NaCl. Of the inorganic and organic cations tested, only Li+ substituted effectively for Na+. Of the inorganic and organic anions tested, only Br- was as effective as Cl-. Thus, the requirement for NaCl in leech feeding represents more than simply an ionic strength requirement or a requirement for Na+ ions and bears similarities to the chemosensory detection of NaCl in other species. Substitution with other amino acids and analogues for arginine revealed marked specificity in the feeding response to this compound as well. D-arginine at concentrations of up to 1000-fold greater than the effective threshold for L-arginine did not elicit ingestion, nor did other common L-amino acids, including the other basic amino acids histidine and lysine. Of the arginine analogues tested, only homoarginine and canavanine (in which all three functional groups of arginine are unchanged) were effective feeding stimulants.

Animals↗
PubMed1994

Regulation of feeding behavior in adult Drosophila melanogaster varies with feeding regime and nutritional state.

The regulation of feeding behavior in adult Drosophila melanogaster includes such elements as ingestion responsiveness, volume ingested in a single meal, food storage in the crop and rate of defecation. Our results suggest that feeding behavior varies in a manner dependent on feeding regime (food-deprived or ad-libitum-fed) and nutritional state. Fed flies that are subsequently food-deprived become increasingly more responsive to food stimuli over time and, when offered 1% agar diets containing different concentrations of sucrose, ingest greater amounts of diets that have higher sucrose concentrations. When fed ad libitum for 72 h on these same diets, D. melanogaster maintained much smaller crops on average than food-deprived flies fed a single meal. Additionally, ad-libitum-fed flies are grouped into two categories depending on the concentration of sucrose in the diet. Flies fed for 72 h on 1% agar diets having 50 mmoll-1 sucrose or more are not affected by the concentration of sucrose in the diet, while flies fed on diets of 15 or 25 mmoll-1 sucrose increase ingestion responsiveness, crop size and the rate of defecation with decreasing concentrations of sucrose in the diet. Flies fed on even lower sucrose concentrations (5 or 10 mmoll-1 sucrose) for 27-72 h exhibit both a shift over time to larger crop sizes and increased mortality over those of flies fed 15 mmoll-1 sucrose. These data suggest that flies fed ad libitum are capable of modulating their feeding behavior in response to their nutritional state.

Animals↗
PubMed1994

AQUATIC PREY TRANSPORT AND THE COMPARATIVE KINEMATICS OF AMBYSTOMA TIGRINUM FEEDING BEHAVIORS

Four definable feeding behaviors used during the metamorphic life history of tiger salamanders are terrestrial prey capture and transport (as adults) and aquatic prey capture and transport (as larvae). Previous studies have focused primarily on the first three of these behaviors and thus aquatic prey transport is poorly understood. These studies have indicated that terrestrial prey capture has unique kinematic and motor patterns, whereas the other behaviors are quite similar to one another. Using high-speed video analysis, the kinematics of aquatic prey transport in larval Ambystoma tigrinum are described using both lateral and ventral views. These kinematic patterns are statistically compared with the kinematic patterns of aquatic prey capture, terrestrial prey capture and terrestrial prey transport. Statistical analyses allow us to assess the similarities and differences among the four behaviors and to determine the effect of the metamorphic environmental transition (water to land) and morphological changes of the feeding mechanism (suction- to lingual-based) on feeding kinematics. Our data do not support the notion that lingual-based terrestrial prey capture uses unique kinematic patterns compared with the other three behaviors, which consist of similar movements. Rather, each of the feeding behaviors has unique kinematic features that distinguish it from the others. In addition, variation in tiger salamander feeding kinematics is more a function of the feeding event (whether it is capture or transport) than of the environment in which the feeding takes place or the morphology of the feeding mechanism. Finally, we encourage the use of parsimony-based methods of phylogenetic analysis to analyze shared traits (such as kinematic and/or electromyographic variables) in comparative studies of behavior within a single species.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1983

Effects of olfactory tract lesions on sexual and feeding behavior in the goldfish.

The paired olfactory tracts (OTs) of goldfish each have a lateral (LOT) and medial (MOT) olfactory tract, the latter with medial (mMOT) and lateral (lMOT) subdivisions. Bilateral OT section (OTX) reduced, while unilateral OT section (UNI) did not impair, male sexual behavior and feeding responses to a complex food odor; in contrast, female sexual behavior, induced in both sexes by prostaglandin treatment, was little affected by OTX. Experiments in which control fish were given UNI and treatment groups received UNI plus selective section of the remaining OT assessed the role of the OT subdivisions in the two olfactory-influenced behaviors (male sexual behavior and feeding). LOT section did not affect courtship, while MOT section reduced courtship to the low levels seen in OTX males; within the MOT, the mMOT may be more important than the lMOT for courtship expression. In contrast to male sexual behavior, feeding responses were less affected by MOT than LOT section. With respect to male sexual behavior, these findings demonstrate differential functions for the anatomically distinct subdivisions of the goldfish olfactory tracts, possibly related to their distinct terminal fields within the telencephalon.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

Cycle-to-cycle variability of neuromuscular activity in Aplysia feeding behavior.

Aplysia consummatory feeding behavior, a rhythmic cycling of biting, swallowing, and rejection movements, is often said to be stereotyped. Yet closer examination shows that cycles of the behavior are very variable. Here we have quantified and analyzed the variability at several complementary levels in the neuromuscular system. In reduced preparations, we recorded the motor programs produced by the central pattern generator, firing of the motor neurons B15 and B16, and contractions of the accessory radula closer (ARC) muscle while repetitive programs were elicited by stimulation of the esophageal nerve. In other similar experiments, we recorded firing of motor neuron B48 and contractions of the radula opener muscle. In intact animals, we implanted electrodes to record nerve or ARC muscle activity while the animals swallowed controlled strips of seaweed or fed freely. In all cases, we found large variability in all parameters examined. Some of this variability reflected systematic, slow, history-dependent changes in the character of the central motor programs. Even when these trends were factored out, however, by focusing only on the differences between successive cycles, considerable variability remained. This variability was apparently random. Nevertheless, it too was the product of central history dependency because regularizing merely the high-level timing of the programs also regularized many of the downstream neuromuscular parameters. Central motor program variability thus appears directly in the behavior. With regard to the production of functional behavior in any one cycle, the large variability may indicate broad tolerances in the operation of the neuromuscular system. Alternatively, some cycles of the behavior may be dysfunctional. Overall, the variability may be part of an optimal strategy of trial, error, and stabilization that the CNS adopts in an uncertain environment.

Action Potentials↗
PubMed1997

Visual and chemical release of feeding behavior in adult rainbow trout.

Feeding behavior of adult rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) is released by visual and/or chemical stimuli. Detection of either a conditioned visual or a conditioned chemical stimulus creates an excitatory feeding state within the central nervous system which turns on feeding behavior composed of swimming, turning and biting/snapping actions. Particular amino acids that are highly effective physiological taste stimuli that are also detected through olfaction (e.g. L-proline, L-alanine, L-leucine) release the initial sequence of food searching and biting/snapping behaviors; however, an effective olfactory, but poor gustatory, stimulus (e.g. L-arginine) is rarely effective behaviorally. After bilateral removal of the paired olfactory organs, visual stimuli alone release the entire set of feeding behavior patterns. Since amino acids that are highly potent physiological taste stimuli do not release either feeding behavior or reflex biting/snapping actions in adult anosmic rainbow trout, it is postulated that the olfactory system detects potent taste stimuli and provides the afferent input for arousal and the release of all feeding activity patterns.

Alanine↗