ArticleResearch square2026
Sex differences in hedonic feeding and characterizing the effects of antibiotic-induced microbiome disruption.
Article in Research square, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
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Abstract
Background: Obesity continues to be a public health issue in our country. Additionally, there continues to be a higher incidence of severe obesity for women compared to men. Among the proposed causes of obesity is increased hedonic feeding: food intake driven by pleasure and palatability rather than physiological hunger. While hedonic feeding is not the sole culprit for the obesity epidemic, it is a major contributing factor. Emerging evidence shows that the gut microbiome impacts feeding behavior and studies have shown that individuals with obesity exhibit an altered gut microbiome. Methods: Here, we used a novel behavioral economics (BE) approach to evaluate hedonic feeding in male and female Sprague-Dawley rats for a high-fat palatable (HFP) reward pellet, before and after antibiotic administration. Specifically, we measured demand elasticity (α), the rate at which demand falls when the price or effort required increases, and demand at null cost (Q Results: We determined a higher demand at null cost (Q Conclusions: We did not determine a significant effect of antibiotics on hedonic feeding, despite disruption to the fecal microbiome. Additionally, we did not observe striking baseline sex differences in fecal microbiome diversity and composition. This brings to question whether the gut microbiome contributes to sex differences in hedonic feeding. More research will be necessary for network factors such as microbiome - bile acid effects on feeding that exhibit sex differences.
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