The Rewarding Effects of the Surface Area Occupied by Food in Rats
Description
Previous studies showed that rats preferred and also ran faster for multiple pellets than a single pellet of food. Here, we manipulated the rewarding effects of surface area occupied by food pellets on preference and running speed of rats trained on a T-maze. Twenty-two male adult Sprague-Dawley rats were trained to prefer one T-maze arm containing 30 food pellets scattered and the other arm with 30 pellets clustered. There was a significant preference for clustered food pieces over the scattered ones. The choice of the clustered food pieces may be explained by the optimal foraging theory to maximize energy gain. Therefore, larger surface area occupied by food pieces may be less rewarding when unnecessary energy is expended.
Date Created
The date the item was original created (prior to any relationship with the ASU Digital Repositories.)
2013-05
Agent
- Author (aut): Tran, Alexander Chauson
- Thesis director: Phillips, Elizabeth Capaldi
- Committee member: Jacobs, Mark
- Committee member: Bajaj, Devina
- Contributor (ctb): Barrett, The Honors College
- Contributor (ctb): Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry