Effects of food deprivation on hunger motivation in golden hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus).

Unlike most other laboratory animals, golden hamsters do not typically increase their food intake following periods of food shortage. It is possible that the hamster feeding system may not be programmed to respond to the metabolic consequences of deprivation; expressed in motivational terms, deprived hamsters would not be hungrier than usual and therefore would not eat more than usual. However, because food consumption is influenced both by hunger motivation and by the motivation to stop eating, the amount of food eaten is not necessarily the best measure of hunger motivation. Four experiments were conducted, revealing that acute food deprivation has significant effects on latency to eat, speed of eating, consumption of a quinine-adulterated diet, open-field activity, and persistence of performance of an instrumental response during extinction. These results constitute convergent evidence that food deprivation increases the hunger motivation of golden hamsters, although deprivation does not lead to increases in the total food intake. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)