The role of taste in the recovery from specific nutrient deficiencies in rats

Humans and animals have an impressive ability to use behavioral means to recover from nutritional deficits. Under some conditions, recovery ray be manifest in the form of a specific appetite for the missing nutrient. This review will discuss how the gustatory system is used by the rat to aid in the recovery from deficiencies of sodium, vitamin B, and individual essential amino acids. While it is likely that a deficient rat will use all available cues to guide intake of a limited nutrient, the role of taste can be partitioned out using techniques that measure immediate behavioral responses to brief exposures of taste stimuli and/or by measuring responsiveness before and after nerve transection. Taste can be used to identify stimuli in the environment as well as serve to motivate intake in terms of producing a particular affective reaction. Compensatory alterations in these aspects of the gustatory system are considered for three types of deficiencies. For learned appetites the utility of conditioning paradigms is presented as a potential means to gain a further understanding of behavioral recovery from specific micronutrient deficiencies.