The neurosteroid allopregnanolone may increase feeding by altering food palatability; however, it may also increase feeding by reducing anxiety (neophobia). Moreover, it is unclear whether this induced hyperphagia is selective to safe, palatable foods only. Male rats were injected with allopregnanolone 20 min prior to behavioral testing. The taste reactivity test was used to examine possible sh...

One-year-old Female Neutered Doberman Pincher weighing 32kg presented with a chronic non-healing wound on her tail stump that had an improper tail docking at Day two by the breeder. The owner reported that the dog had the wound all along and that she hoped it would heal with time. Many types of treatment and different wound management modalities were tried since the dog was eight weeks old at t...

Responses of midbrain dopamine (DA) neurons reflecting expected reward from sensory cues are critical for reward-based associative learning. However, critical pathways by which reward-related visual information is relayed to DA neurons remain unclear. To address this question, we investigated Pavlovian conditioning in macaque monkeys with unilateral primary visual cortex (V1) lesions (an animal...

Stopping or pausing in response to threats, conflicting information, or surprise is fundamental to behavior. Evidence across species has shown that the subthalamic nucleus (STN) is activated by scenarios involving stopping or pausing, yet evidence that the STN causally implements stops or pauses is lacking. Here we used optogenetics to activate or inhibit mouse STN to test its putative causal r...

Most knowledge of parent-offspring relations in mammals is derived from studies of mother-infant interactions. Male parental care has been less well studied. We explored maternal and paternal behavior of the California mouse, Peromyscus californicus. Six pairs of parents and their young were videotaped continuously for 12 hours/day, on alternate days from Days 1 to 31 postpartum. Males exhibit ...

We investigated the effect of beta-oxidation inhibition on the fat ingestive behavior of BALB/c mice. Intraperitoneal administration to mice of mercaptoacetate, an inhibitor of fatty acid oxidation, significantly suppressed intake of corn oil but not intake of sucrose solution or laboratory chow. To further examine the effect of mercaptoacetate on the acceptability of corn oil in the oral cavit...

OSSENKOPP, K.-P., R. K. COOLEY AND C. H. VANDERWOLF. A simple method for monitoring licking responses that is compatible with electrophysiological recording. PHYSIOL. BEHAV. 24(4) 801-803, 1980.--A simple technique is described for the monitoring of drinking behavior that is compatible with concurrent recording of electrophysioiogical events. The technique involves transduction of the movement ...