Teubner BJ, Bartness TJ. Anti-ghrelin Spiegelmer inhibits exogenous ghrelin-induced increases in food intake, hoarding, and neural activation, but not food deprivation-induced increases. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 305: R323-R333, 2013. First published June 26, 2013 doi:10.1152/ajpregu.00097.2013.-Circulating concentrations of the stomach-derived "hunger-peptide" ghrelin increase in direct proportion to the time since the last meal. Exogenous ghrelin also increases food intake in rodents and humans, suggesting ghrelin may increase post-fast ingestive behaviors. Food intake after food deprivation is increased by laboratory rats and mice, but not by humans (despite dogma to the contrary) or by Siberian hamsters; instead, humans and Siberian hamsters increase food hoarding, suggesting the latter as a model of fasting-induced changes in human ingestive behavior. Exogenous ghrelin markedly increases food hoarding by ad libitum-fed Siberian hamsters similarly to that after food deprivation, indicating sufficiency. Here, we tested the necessity of ghrelin to increase food foraging, food hoarding, and food intake, and neural activation [c-Fos immunoreactivity (c-Fos-ir)] using anti-ghrelin Spiegelmer NOX-B11-2 (SPM), an L-oligonucleotide that specifically binds active ghrelin, inhibiting peptide-receptor interaction. SPM blocked exogenous ghrelin-induced increases in food hoarding the first 2 days after injection, and foraging and food intake at 1-2 h and 2-4 h, respectively, and inhibited hypothalamic c-Fos-ir. SPM given every 24 h across 48-h food deprivation inconsistently inhibited food hoarding after refeeding and c-Fos-ir, similarly to inabilities to do so in laboratory rats and mice. These results suggest that ghrelin may not be necessary for food deprivation-induced foraging and hoarding and neural activation. A possible compensatory response, however, may underlie these findings because SPM treatment led to marked increases in circulating ghrelin concentrations. Collectively, these results show that SPM can block exogenous ghrelin-induced ingestive behaviors, but the necessity of ghrelin for food deprivation-induced ingestive behaviors remains unclear.foraging; Siberian hamster; c-Fos; immunohistochemistry OBESITY IS A CRITICAL HEALTH problem nearly worldwide because of its many secondary health consequences, including stroke, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers (13,26,29,55,56,65,71). One result of the dire nature and pervasiveness of obesity is the increase in health care costs; for example, an estimated U.S. $147 billion in 2008 (24). Therefore, preventing and reversing obesity will have overall health and financial benefits. Food intake that exceeds energy expenditure is the prima facie cause of obesity. We believe one contributing cause of the overconsumption of food is the increased availability of relatively inexpensive calorically dense foods/drinks, their longer shelf-lives, and the increasingly larger storage compartments (refrigerators, freezers, pantries) for these items (f...