Effects of food deprivation period on eating rate in rats

Abstract

Two of the most common temporal variables present in any eating behavior experiment are inter access-to-food interval and access-to-food duration. In this study, the effects of both variables on eating behavior were investigated. Three rats were exposed to different durations of inter access-to-food interval in an ascending order. Another three rats were exposed to the inter accessto- food interval in a descending order. For all the rats the access-to-food duration was the complement of the 24 hours period. The procedure of ascending order changed systematically the eating behavior. On the contrary, the eating behavior of the subjects exposed to the descending order was less sensible to the changes of the inter access-to-food interval. The findings of this study are comparable with previous data in which some of the experimental operations include the temporal variables conceptualized for the present study. Thus, it is necessary increase the evidence focus on the development of the generality of both temporal variables.