March 25, 2005 INTAKE Volume 17, Issue 1 Official Publication of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior Special Interest Articles: SSIB Annual Meeting 2005: • Recent Awards and Honors earned by SSIB Pittsburgh, PA members By Linda Rinaman • Environmental enrichment in We all are looking forward to the 2005 studies of annual SSIB meeting in Pittsburgh, ingestive PA (July 12-17, 2005). Located at behavior the confluence of three major rivers and banked on all sides by green • Food Choice hills, Pittsburgh has enjoyed an Meeting amazing modern renaissance, which has truly reinvented the city and its riverfront. If you haven’t been to Pittsburgh in the last five years, you haven’t been to Pittsburgh! The new Pittsburgh has more great Individual restaurants, nightlife and downtown Highlights: cultural venues than any other city its size in the country. The Pittsburgh Epstein & International Airport is consistently Distinguished rated one of the best airports in the Career Awards Announced 3 world for its shopping, connections and passenger flow. With more than 2005 New 600 non-stop flights per day from 118 Investigator cities in North America and Europe, A view of downtown Pittsburgh from the Awards 3 you will have easy access to the SSIB meeting. incline of Mt. Washington. NIH Symposium: Ghrelin & Eating Pittsburgh is a very friendly and of outdoor activities. The Pittsburgh Disorders 3 affordable city. You’re going to love region offers more than 100 public golf courses, as well as mountain biking, Chartered our compact, easily walkable whitewater rafting and more, all within a Riverboat downtown, and you’ll appreciate the Cruise 5 convenience of America’s shortest, short drive from downtown Pittsburgh. cleanest subway that will whisk you President under the river from our meeting site Hospitality abounds in Pittsburgh’s Wolfgang at the Sheraton Station Square Hotel diverse ethnic neighborhoods, offering Langhans’ to the downtown city, with multiple visitors a sampling of food and culture message 5-6 venues for entertainment, nightlife, inspired and influenced by the city’s Jobs 7-8 cruises, and miles and miles of history and ethnic heritage. Downtown, riverfront trails for morning jogs or a thriving Cultural District offers evening strolls. performances by the world-class … Pittsburgh ’05 8 Extend your stay and enjoy a variety (continued on page 4) INTAKE Page 2 of 8 Environment and enrichment in rodent studies of ingestive behavior By Neil Rowland Department of Psychology, University of Florida those that develop diabetes, pose additional concerns for husbandry and EE in regard to feeding and National and international animal welfare standards, metabolism (Good, 2005). Good’s article includes a most usually enforced in the USA by Institutional Animal demonstration picture of a mouse housed singly in a Care and Use Committees (IACUCs), regard the single wire grid cage but containing a PVC pipe and ‘Nestlet’ housing of normally social animals like rats or mice to pad. This might be very appropriate in some studies be stressful and require scientific justification. Among but might be a confounding factor in metabolic work, the most used standards are those proposed in the including urine collection. Provision of plastic shelters Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals like PVC pipes or ‘igloos’ may decrease energy (1996). In this regard, the Guide (page 26) quotes from expenditure, while exercise devices like wheels will Brain & Bention (1979): “Whenever it is appropriate, increase expenditure, and indirectly may alter food or social animals should be housed in pairs or groups, fluid intake (Borer et al 1988; Irani et al 2005). rather than individually, provided that such housing is not contraindicated by the protocol in question and does Most investigators of ingestive behavior either purchase not pose an undue risk to the animals”. or raise animals to study in young adulthood, and these animals are invariably raised in social groups. They Many studies of feeding and drinking behavior use then either continue group housing or are individually singly housed rodents. There are important scientific housed, with or without EE, for the behavioral studies. grounds for this, including: The key question is whether the use of EE affects the • a necessity of collecting individual data and/or science. Some learning and exploration tasks in mice use of automated devices have been reported to be unaffected by group housing mice in either standard small cages or enriched larger • group housing may lead to establishment of cages (Wolfer et al 2004). Moons et al (2004) reported social hierarchies and individual differences that food and water intake of EE mice did not differ from that, although interesting, are not the non-enriched. In contrast, Van de Weerd et al (1997) immediate scientific objective found that the food intake of group housed mice of both the BALB/c and C57BL strains was reduced • if food or fluid restriction is involved, group significantly (by up to 10%, P<0.01) in groups whose housed rodents (especially males) may start cages contained paper nesting material as EE. fighting. However, the body weight gain was identical in EE and In accordance with the Guide, IACUCs usually will non-EE mice of the same strain and sex. This suggests understand and approve the need for single housing, at that a metabolic savings was afforded by nesting least for the necessary duration of the experiment. material over and above that provided by the standard Further, while some studies can use the solid-bottom bedding. plastic tub-style enclosures with bedding in the cage1, Because the available literature for ingestive behavior this often interferes with measures of ingestive behavior seems to be sparse, especially in regard to EE in singly because food spillage is hard to quantify and/or food or housed animals as well as differences between species fluid become spoiled with bedding. Thus, some studies and/or strains, it would be helpful for SSIB members are better performed in cages with non-solid floors who have either formal or informal data relevant to this (usually stainless steel mesh or rods) and this type of issue to share their data and concerns. Those non-standard housing also often requires additional individuals having specific environmental innovations, justification. comparison data, relevant articles, or just opinions, are invited to e-mail them to me ([email protected]). If Given these evolving concerns about rodent social and there is sufficient interest, I will report the responses in housing conditions, a question that is receiving a future issue of INTAKE. increasing attention concerns provision of environmental enrichment (EE) especially for singly housed rodents. Several commercial as well as Editors note: To download a complete copy of this inexpensive home-made EE options are now available article including references, please visit the (Key, 2004). Some strains of obese rodents, notably supplemental online material for this issue of INTAKE (Vol 17, no 1) at http://www.ssib.org/newsletter.html Page 3 of 8 INTAKE Congratulations to the 2005 SSIB Young Investigator Travel Epstein and Lifetime Achievement Awards Announced Award Recipients: The Alan N. Epstein Research to the understanding of ingestive Manuela Lejeune, Ph.D., Award honors an individual for a behavior. The award is made to a postdoctoral fellow, specific research discovery that has senior investigator who has retired Maastricht University advanced the understanding of from his/her academic position, or will ingestive behavior. Members of SSIB be retired the time of the award. Astrid Smeets, who are less than 15 years beyond the Ph.D. student, date of their highest degree are Erwin Scharrer’s extraordinarily broad Maastricht University eligible. knowledge in general and comparative physiology allowed him to Jacquelien Hillebrand, Ph.D., This year’s recipient, Kevin Grove, conceptualize things and to take an postdoctoral fellow, earned his Ph.D. from Washington integrative and comparative approach Rudolf Magnus Institute State University in 1994. Dr. Grove to problems long before "integrative" of Neuroscience, University has since identified important problems and "systems biology" became buzz Medical Center, Utrecht for study, applied sophisticated words. He has tackled questions from techniques and developed new many different viewpoints, combining Graham Finlayson, concepts about the organization of behavior with anatomy, physiology, Ph.D. student, hypothalamic peptide signaling. He is endocrinology and metabolism; and his University of Leeds honored with the Epstein Award position for much of his career as a specifically for his work on the Professor of Physiology in a veterinary Paula Chandler, development of NPY circuitry. Dr. university allowed him to include Ph.D. student, Grove and his colleagues were the first comparative approaches to all of his University of Alabama at to demonstrate and characterize the findings. Dr. Scharrer’s longtime Birmingham presence of novel NPY mRNA interest and use of spontaneous expression in the dorsomedial feeding methodology and of Sarah Teegarden, hypothalamic and the paraventricular electrophysiology also set him at the Ph.D. student, nucleus at times during postnatal forefront of scholars in ingestive University of Pennsylvania development. This important work is behavior. His research aside, perhaps just beginning to enjoy the recognition the greatest contribution Dr. Scharrer it deserves. Kevin manages to has made to the field of ingestive accomplish all this while being one of behavior is the trainees he has Graduate student Mardi S. the nicest guys in the field. mentored. Included on an impressive Byerly of the Neuroscience and Congratulations Dr. Grove! list over the years are two SSIB Cognitive Science program at Presidents (Nori Geary and Wolfgang the University of Maryland, The Distinguished Career Award Langhans) as well as Thomas Lutz. College Park, has been honors an individual for Congratulations Dr. Scharrer! awarded the Cosmos Club accomplishments in, and contributions Foundation Research Grant.