Nutrient selection and recovery from physical and mental workloads.
Workloads require animals and humans to adapt to altered mental and physical demands.
This occurs by the mean of changes in energy intake during feeding, neuroendocrine and metabolic responses, as well as behavioral modifications, important to maintain the physical health and the cognitive ability at an optimal level. Excessive high intensity workloads have been suggested to induce exhaustion of the adaptational response system for a middle-long term. As a result a prolonged state of fatigue, accompanied by mental and physical inability may occur. The aim of the first part of this project is to develop and standardize an animal model for the study of long term consequences of physical workloads. Sub-groups of animals will also be implanted with transmitter to record in biotelemetry core temperature, locomotor activity, heart rate and blood pressure.