Is the FEO Food-Entrainable? Reexamining the Classic Fred Stephan Experiment Using Canonical-Clock–Less Period 1/2/3 Triple Knockout Mice

triple knockout (KO) mice, in which the canonical circadian oscillators in the SCN and peripheral tissues are disabled. KO mice were subjected to restricted feeding under constant darkness. The food-seeking nose-poking activity of a subset of the KO mice indeed occasionally entrained to the feeding cycle and re-entrained to a shifted feeding cycle. Despite our previous study showing that anticipatory food-seeking behavior shifted with the environmental light-dark cycle, these data demonstrate that it can also entrain to the feeding cycle in the absence of an environmental light-dark cycle, supporting Stephan's observation that the FEO is indeed food-entrainable.