Physiological and metabolic control of diet selection

Abstract

The fact that most farm animals have no dietary choice under commercial practices translates the dietary decisions to the carers. Thus, a lack of understanding of the principles of dietary choices is likely to result in a high toll for the feed industry. In healthy animals, diet selection and, ultimately, feed intake is the result of factoring together the preference for the feed available with the motivation to eat. Both are dynamic states and integrate transient stimulus derived from the nutritional status, environmental and social determinants of the animal with hard-wired genetic mechanisms. Peripheral senses are the primary inputs that determine feed preferences. Some of the sensory aspects of feed, such as taste, are innate and genetically driven, keeping the hedonic value of feed strictly associated with a nutritional frame. Sweet, umami and fat tastes are all highly appetitive. They stimulate reward responses from the brain and reinforce dietary choices related to essential nutrients. In contrast, aroma (smell) recognition is a plastic trait and preferences are driven mostly by learned experience. Maternal transfer through perinatal conditioning and the individual’s own innate behaviour to try or to avoid novel feed (often termed as neophobia) are known mechanisms where the learning process strongly affects preferences. In addtition, the motivation to eat responds to episodic events fluctuating in harmony with the eating patterns. These signals are driven mainly by gastrointestinal hormones (such as cholecystokinin [CCK] and glucagon-like peptide 1 [GLP-1]) and load. In addition, long-term events generate mechanisms for a sustainable nutritional homeostasis managed by tonic signals from tissue stores (i.e. leptin and insulin). Insulin and leptin are known to affect appetite by modulating peripheral sensory inputs. The study of chemosensory mechanisms related to the nutritional status of the animal offers novel tools to understand the dynamic states of feed choices so as to meet nutritional and hedonic needs. Finally, a significant body of literature exists regarding appetite driven by energy and amino acids in farm animals. However, it is surprising that there is scarcity of knowledge regarding what and how specific dietary nutrients may affect satiety. Thus, a better understanding on how bitter compounds and excess dietary nutrients (i.e. amino acids) play a role in no-choice animal feeding is an urgent topic to be addressed so that right choices can be made on the animal’s behalf.