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Effect of postnatal dietary protein and energy restriction on exploratory behavior in young pigs
Author(s) -
Barnes Richard H.,
Levitsky David A.,
Pond Wilson G.,
Moore Ulric
Publication year - 1976
Publication title -
developmental psychobiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.055
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1098-2302
pISSN - 0012-1630
DOI - 10.1002/dev.420090505
Subject(s) - malnutrition , psychology , developmental psychology , object (grammar) , physiology , zoology , biology , medicine , computer science , artificial intelligence
Three‐week‐old pigs were subjected to dietary energy or protein restriction so as to prevent weight gain over a period of 8 weeks. During the last week of restriction their responses to a novel object introduced into an exploratory test situation were measured. The malnourished pigs exhibited indifference to the object, taking longer to make contact with it, spending less time playing with it, but not showing evidence of fear or avoidance of the object or the area in which it was located. Following 6 weeks of nutritional rehabilitation, the previously malnourished pigs again displayed less approach behavior to the novel object than controls, but the effect was substantially reduced. These observations are interpreted to support our hypothesis that a major mechanism through which early malnutrition produces long‐term effects on behavior is by disturbing those behaviors required for gathering information from the environment.