EFFECT OF INFANTILE UNDERNUTRITION ON ADULT SUCROSE SOLUTION CONSUMPTION IN THE RAT

During the first twenty days of the lives of the experimental rat pups, undernutrition was produced in the pups and their dams by allowing the dams access to only 40 percent of the amount of food that they would normally eat. In adulthood, rehabilitated animals were allowed access to varied sucrose solutions in their home cages. Each solution was available for a 24 hour period. Consumption of the increasing concentrations of sucrose by the nondeprived, nondisturbed, previously undernourished animals followed the shape of the curve of the palatability function produced by normal animals but was elevated above that of normals in the ascending and descending but not the final plateau portion of the curve. The results were interpreted in terms of a control theory of food intake. © 1979.