Physiological mechanisms for food-hoarding motivation in animals

摘要

The study of ingestive behaviour has an extensive history, starting as early as 1918 when WallaceCraig, an animal behaviourist, coined the terms 'appetitive' and 'consummatory' for the two-partsequence of eating, drinking and sexual behaviours. Since then, most ingestive behaviour researchhas focused on the neuroendocrine control of food ingestion (consummatory behaviour). The quan-tity of food eaten, however, is also influenced by the drive both to acquire and to store food(appetitive behaviour). For example, hamster species have a natural proclivity to hoard food andpreferentially alter appetitive ingestive behaviours in response to environmental changes and/ormetabolic hormones and neuropeptides, whereas other species would instead primarily increasetheir food intake. Therefore, with the strong appetitive component to their ingestive behaviourthat is relatively separate from their consummatory behaviour, they seem an ideal model for eluci-dating the neuroendocrine mechanisms underlying the control of food hoarding and foraging. Thisreview focuses on the appetitive side of ingestive behaviour, in particular food hoarding, attemptingto integrate what is known about the neuroendocrine mechanisms regulating this relatively poorlystudied behaviour. An hypothesis is formed stating that the direction of 'energy flux' is a unifyingfactor for the control of food hoarding.