Operant responding for dietary protein in the golden hamster (Mesocricetus auratus)

Golden hamsters housed in operant chambers over a period of weeks had ad lib access to a maintenance diet that was either nutritionally complete (NCMD) or protein-free (PFMD), and they were required to press a lever on a fixed-ratio (FR) schedule to obtain 20-mg high-protein pellets. As the FR requirement increased, hamsters maintained on the NCMD made fewer lever presses and ate fewer pellets, and at the highest FR levels, they earned very few pellets. In contrast, hamsters maintained on PFMD increased the number of lever presses as the FR requirement increased, and they only slightly reduced the number of pellets eaten. Even at the highest FR requirement levels, PFMD hamsters still derived an average of 11-12% of total calories from protein, a level of intake that is either adequate for adult hamsters, or very nearly so. Previous research has shown that hamsters make adaptive behavioural adjustments in response to time-restricted access to dietary protein, and the present findings demonstrate that protein-restricted hamsters that must press a lever to obtain protein-rich pellets also make adaptive behavioural adjustments when challenged with increases in the FR requirement.