Food Deprivation: A Neuroscientific Perspective

The Russian physiologist Pavlov considered eating as the most powerful relationship an organism has to its surrounding world (Pavlov 1953). This "food connection" is heavily regulated by internal state variables such as hunger. Prolonged periods of starving are one of the most tragic experiences of humanity and even mild conditions of food deprivation clearly affect consummatory behavior as reflected in the saying "hunger is the hest spice" . Everybody knows about the effects of deprivation . The effects appear intuitively so obvious that the phenomenon receives paradoxically rather too little than too much attention. Consider for instance the work of Pavlov and Skinner, in which food stimuli playa central role. The empirical finding that the contingent pairing or a tone and rood establi shes new behaviors is nowadays taught in high school. After training, the dog salivates to a previously neutral stimulus. Similarly, knowledge