Food restriction induces a loss of body mass that is often followed by rapid regaining of the lost weight when the restriction ends, consequently increasing a risk of development of obesity. To determine the physiological and behavioral mechanisms underlining the regaining, striped hamsters were restricted to 85% of initial food intake for 4 weeks and refed ad libitum for another 4 weeks. Chang...

Food and water restriction protocols are common in animal research, yet they often elicit discussion and controversy among institutional animal care and use committee members who review them. Determining a single standard by which all restriction protocols can be evaluated or performed may not be realistic. However, information about the physiologic and behavioral impact of food and water restr...

Food deprivation can affect performance on difficult cognitive task, such as the delayed nonmatch-to-place T-maze task (DNMT). The importance of food deprivation on maintaining high motivation for DNMT task has been emphasized, but not many studies have investigated the optimal conditions for depriving rodents to maximize performance. Establishing appropriate conditions for food deprivation is ...

As ecosystems undergo changes worldwide, physiological flexibility is likely to be an important adaptive response to increased climate instability. Extreme weather fluctuations impose energetical constraints such as unpredictable food shortage. We tested how grey mouse lemurs (Microcebus murinus) could adjust their daily heterothermy and locomotor activity to these 'energetic accidents' with a ...

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to determine the paired consequences of food restriction and paradoxical sleep deprivation on lipid profile and spontaneous glucose levels in male rats. METHOD Food restriction began at weaning, with 6 g of food being provided per day, which was subsequently increased by 1 g per week until reaching 15 g per day by the eighth week. At adulthood, both ra...

Laboratory rats, when kept in conditions regarded as "standard", are physically inactive, do not have proper environmental stimulation and have free access to food, which can lead to metabolic syndrome and fat accumulation in the liver. This study aimed to analyse the susceptibility of "control animals", which have free access to food, to metabolic syndrome and fat accumulation in the liver com...

Bates HE, Sirek A, Kiraly MA, Yue JT, Riddell MC, Matthews SG, Vranic M. Adaptation to intermittent stress promotes maintenance of -cell compensation: comparison with food restriction. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab 295: E947–E958, 2008. First published August 19, 2008; doi:10.1152/ajpendo.90378.2008.—Intermittent restraint stress delays hyperglycemia in ZDF rats better than pair feeding. We hyp...

Chronic stress has been known to potentiate addictive behaviours in both human addicts and experimental animals. In the present study, chronic mild food restriction was used as a stressor to investigate its effect on the locomotor simulant effects of cocaine as well as FosB expression in the nucleus accumbens and caudate putamen. Chronic mild food restriction enhanced the locomotor response to ...

Food restriction has long been known to prolong life in rodents, and recent studies have shown it to have antiaging effects in regard to a variety of physiologic and pathologic processes. It has been suggested that these actions of food restriction relate to the reduction of metabolic rate per unit of body mass brought about by this dietary regimen. Data are presented in this report showing tha...

Repeated oxytocin administration to adult rats causes a long-term decrease of plasma levels of corticosterone and blood pressure and stimulates growth and fat retention. Maternal undernutrition increases blood pressure and plasma corticosterone in adult offspring. We hypothesized that oxytocin treatment early in life would alleviate adverse effects of intrauterine food restriction. Male pups fr...