Behavioural and brain responses to flavoured-meals paired with visceral stimulations in pigs

Caroline Clouard (1) , Mélanie Jouhanneau (1) , Marie-Christine Meunier-Salaün (1) , Charles-Henri Malbert (1) , David Val-Laillet (1)

1 SENAH - Systèmes d'élevage, nutrition animale et humaine

Behavioural and brain responses towards conditioned flavours with different hedonic values were studied in twelve 30-kg pigs. During four 30-min conditioning sessions per flavour, the animals received a flavoured-meal paired with intraduodenal infusions of 15% glucose (FG), lithium chloride (FL), or saline (FS). Two-choice feeding tests were performed 1 and 5 weeks later, and in between, anaesthetised pigs were subjected to three PET brain imaging with exposure to the flavours. During conditioning, pigs spent more time inactive, explored and played less after FL than FS or FG meal. During the two-choice tests, the FS and FG flavours were significantly preferred over the FL flavour. FS was preferred over FG during the first test only. Exposure to flavours with different hedonic values induced metabolism differences in neural circuits involved in preference and aversion learning, feeding motivation, reward expectation and/or the characterisation of food palatability. In conclusion, post-ingestive visceral stimuli can modulate the flavour/food hedonicity and further feeding choices. Unconscious brain mechanisms are involved in flavour discrimination and expectation of food reward.

Mots clés: Neurobiologie; stimulation viscérale

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Caroline Clouard, Mélanie Jouhanneau, Marie-Christine Meunier-Salaün, Charles-Henri Malbert, David Val-Laillet. Behavioural and brain responses to flavoured-meals paired with visceral stimulations in pigs. Behavior 2011. Joint meeting of the Animal Behavior Society & International Ethological Conference, Jul 2011, Bloomington, United States. ⟨hal-01409416⟩