posted on 2019-05-01, 15:07authored byFabien Naneix, Sophie C. Pinder, Megan Y. Summers, Renee M. Rouleau, Eric Robinson, Kevin P. Myers, James E. McCutcheon
In studies of eating behavior that have been conducted in humans, the tendency to consume more when given larger portions of food, known as the portion size effect (PSE), is one of the most robust and widely replicated findings. Despite this, the mechanisms that underpin it are still unknown. In particular, it is unclear whether the PSE arises from higher-order social and cognitive processes that are unique to humans or, instead, reflects more fundamental processes that drive feeding, such as conditioned food-seeking. Importantly, studies in rodents and other animals have yet to show convincing evidence of a PSE. In this series of studies, we used several methods to test for a PSE in adult male Sprague Dawley rats. Our approaches included using visually identifiable portions of a palatable food; training on a plate cleaning procedure; providing portion sizes of food pellets that were signaled by auditory and visual food-predictive cues; providing food with amorphous shape properties; and providing standard chow diet portions in home cages. In none of these manipulations did larger portions increase food intake. In summary, our data provide no evidence that a PSE is present in male Sprague Dawley rats, and if it is, it is more nuanced, dependent on experimental procedure, and/or smaller in size than it is in humans. In turn, these findings suggest that the widely-replicated PSE in humans may be more likely to reflect higher-order cognitive and social processes than fundamental conditioned behaviors.
Funding
This work was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [grant # BB/M007391/1 to JEM]; and the European Commission [grant # GA 631404 to JEM]. ER's salary is supported by the Medical Research Council (grant MR/N000218/1) and he has previously received funding from Unilever and the American Beverage Association.
History
Citation
Physiology and Behavior, 2019, 206, pp. 225-231
Author affiliation
/Organisation/COLLEGE OF LIFE SCIENCES/Biological Sciences/Neuroscience, Psychology and Behaviour
Version
AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Published in
Physiology and Behavior
Publisher
Elsevier for International Behavioral Neuroscience Society
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