The Action and Interaction of Physiological Food Intake Regulators in the Laying Hen

Abstract

RESEARCH studies in the field of physiology have established the fact that certain specific physiological mechanisms in animals regulate and maintain energy balance. Such regulation and maintenance are brought about through adjustments made in four important variables: (1) food intake, (2) stored energy, (3) work, and (4) heat production. Food intake is the key factor in this regulating process, since it compensates for any changes in the other three variables. For this reason, the mechanisms that regulate food intake are of prime importance in the overall maintenance of energy balance (Anand, 1961). During the past 20 years, the physiological regulators of food intake have been studied more and more as functions of the central nervous sytem (Grossman, 1963). From the research data acquired in these studies, five food intake regulatory mechanisms have been proposed as signals for the central nervous system. These are: (1) the “thermostatic” hypothesis of Strominger and . . .