Food entrainment is the internal mechanism whereby the phase and period of circadian clock genes comes under the control of daily scheduled food availability. Food entrainment allows the body to efficiently realign the internal timing of behavioral and physiological functions such that they anticipate food intake. Food entrainment can occur with or without caloric restriction, as seen with dail...

The ability to entrain circadian rhythms to food availability is important for survival. Food-entrained circadian rhythms are characterized by increased locomotor activity in anticipation of food availability (food anticipatory activity). However, the molecular components and neural circuitry underlying the regulation of food anticipatory activity remain unclear. Here we show that serotonin(2C)...

Melanocortin-3 receptors (MC3R) have a contextual role in appetite control that is amplified with hypocaloric conditioning. C57BL/6J (B6) mice subjected to hypocaloric feeding schedules (HFS) exhibit compulsive behavioral responses involving food anticipatory activity (FAA) and caloric loading following food access. These homeostatic responses to calorie-poor environs are attenuated in B6 mice ...

The dorsomedial hypothalamus (DMH) is a site of circadian clock gene and immediate early gene expression inducible by daytime restricted feeding schedules that entrain food anticipatory circadian rhythms in rats and mice. The role of the DMH in the expression of anticipatory rhythms has been evaluated using different lesion methods. Partial lesions created with the neurotoxin ibotenic acid (IBO...

A three-month culture experiment was designed to assess the effects of photoperiod and feeding regime on growth, feed utilization, food anticipatory activity (FAA) juvenile rainbow trout. The included two photoperiods: 24L:0D (LL) 12L:12D (LD); three regimes: random (R), mid-dark stage (D), mid-light (L). total six treatment groups (R-LL, D-LL, L-LL, R-LD, D-LD, L-LD) were defined. experimental...

Regulators of G protein signaling (RGS) are a multi-functional protein family, which functions in part as GTPase-activating proteins (GAPs) of G protein α-subunits to terminate G protein signaling. Previous studies have demonstrated that the Rgs16 transcripts exhibit robust circadian rhythms both in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), the master circadian light-entrainable oscillator (LEO) of th...

Mice fed a single daily meal at intervals within the circadian range exhibit food anticipatory activity. Previous investigations strongly suggest that this behaviour is regulated by a circadian pacemaker entrained to the timing of fasting/refeeding. The neural correlate(s) of this pacemaker, the food entrainable oscillator (FEO), whether found in a neural network or a single locus, remain unkno...

Restricted feeding (RF) schedules provide a cycle of fasting and feeding each day and induce circadian rhythms in food-anticipatory activity. In addition, daily rhythms in the expression of circadian clock genes, such as rhythms in Period1 (PER1) or Period2 (PER2), are also shifted in many brain areas that are important for the regulation of motivation and emotion. In order to differentiate bra...

Entrainment of anticipatory activity and wakefulness to nutrient availability is a poorly understood component of energy homeostasis. Restricted feeding (RF) paradigms with a periodicity of 24 h rapidly induce entrainment of rhythms anticipating food presentation that are independent of master clocks in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) but do require other hypothalamic structures. Here, we rep...