Nk. Dess et Da. Vanderweele, LITHIUM-CHLORIDE AND INESCAPABLE, UNSIGNALED TAIL SHOCK DIFFERENTIALLY AFFECT MEAL PATTERNS OF RATS, Physiology & behavior, 56(1), 1994, pp. 203-207
Several motivational states, such as malaise, fear, and satiety, reduc
e spontaneous food ingestion by rats, and differentiation of these sta
tes is often desirable. The present study used the spontaneous meal pa
ttern to this end. The illness-inducing toxin lithium chloride delayed
initiation of the first postinjection meal, and that meal was smaller
and eaten more slowly (Experiments 1A and 1B). Rats exposed to tail s
hock also subsequently took longer to initiate meals, but meals were e
aten faster and were slightly larger relative to control conditions (E
xperiment 2). These changes in meal patterns are different from those
produced by satiety-related hormones, such as CCK or insulin, which so
lely reduce meal size in paradigms designed to assess physiological re
gulation of food intake. Taken together, these findings attest to the
ability of meal patterns to distinguish malaise, fear, and satiety fro
m one another.