BACKGROUND The current practice in newborn medicine is to subjectively assess when a premature infant is ready to feed by mouth. When the assessment is inaccurate, the resulting feeding morbidities may be significant, resulting in long-term health consequences and millions of health care dollars annually. We hypothesized that the developmental maturation of hypothalamic regulation of feeding be...

This study examines the ability of a temperate marine fish, Hexagrammos decagrammus, to modulate its prey capture behavior in response to differences in prey type. This species has an extremely broad diet, feeding on prey which demonstrate very different anti-capture behaviors. Video-taped attacks on three shrimp species, one crab and pieces of shrimp were analyzed to determine the relative con...

Humpback whales Megaptera novaeangliae have adopted unique feeding strategies to take advantage of behavioral changes in their prey. However, logistical constraints have largely limited ecological analyses of these interactions. Our objectives were to (1) link humpback whale feeding behaviors to concurrent measurements of prey using scientific echo-sounders, and (2) quantify how sand lance beha...

How the brain translates changes in internal metabolic state or perceived food quality into alterations in feeding behavior remains poorly understood. Studies in Drosophila larvae have yielded information about neuropeptides and circuits that promote feeding, but a peptidergic neuron subset whose activation inhibits feeding in adult flies, without promoting metabolic changes that mimic the stat...

The paraventricular nucleus (PVN) of the hypothalamus is an important site for the regulation of feeding behavior. Neuropeptide Y (NPY) injected into this nucleus strongly stimulates food intake. In the current study, we measured NPY release in the PVN of unrestrained rats through the push-pull technique. The rats were placed in their habitual environment and conditions of life. NPY release was...

Feeding behavior of adult rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) is released by visual and/or chemical stimuli. Detection of either a conditioned visual or a conditioned chemical stimulus creates an excitatory feeding state within the central nervous system which turns on feeding behavior composed of swimming, turning and biting/snapping actions. Particular amino acids that are highly effective ph...

The gustatory system of animals is involved in food quality assessment and controls the feeding decision of an individual confronted with a potential alimentary source. Triatomines are haematophagous insects that feed on vertebrate blood. Once they reach a potential host, they walk over the host skin searching for an adequate site to pierce. Then, they insert their stylets and take a first samp...

This multifactorial study used a newly developed ventral videography technique to investigate the feeding behavior of 18-mo-old juvenile greenlip abalone (21.1 g, 55.6 mm), and hybrid abalone (23.4 g, 57.6 mm) fed either a formulated commercial diet or live Ulva sp. at 18 C and 22 C. Feeding behavior was scored in terms of the following activities: quiescence, alertness, moving, feeding, distan...

Feeding behavior is closely regulated by neuroendocrine mechanisms that can be influenced by stressful life events. However, the feeding response to stress varies among individuals with some increasing and others decreasing food intake after stress. In addition to the impact of acute lifestyle and genetic backgrounds, the early life environment can have a life-long influence on neuroendocrine m...

The dorsomedial hypothalamus (DMH) is critically implicated in the cardiovascular response to emotional stress. This study aimed to determine whether the DMH is also important in cardiovascular arousal associated with appetitive feeding behavior and, if so, whether locally released angiotensin II and glutamate are important in this arousal. Emotional (air-jet) stress and feeding elicited simila...