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The effects of changes in housing on feeding and wheel running
1Department of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
Abstract:
The experiments explored the effects on feeding when rats were moved between individual and paired housing. In Experiment 1, rats moved to paired housing showed a 3-day suppression in feeding (initially 23%) compared to chronically individual- or pair-housed rats. In Experiment 2, half of the rats from the two control groups of Experiment 1 were moved between individual and paired housing on alternate days. Only the rats moved to paired housing showed a feeding suppression (initially 40%), but the nature of the suppression differed from Experiment 1: it appeared that only one rat of each pair showed a feeding suppression. Experiment 3 examined simultaneous introduction of running wheels and moves to paired housing. The feeding suppression induced by the move to paired housing was more immediate and shorter lived than the wheel-induced suppression. Unlike wheel access, paired housing produced only a temporary suppression of body weight. These experiments suggest that the relatively simple manipulation of moving rats from individual to paired housing results in a temporary stress-induced decrease in feeding.