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Published on: August 18, 2014
Taste-potentiated odor aversion learning in rats with lesions of the insular cortex
Jian-You Lin1, Christopher Roman, Steve Reilly
1Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1007 West Harrison Street, Chicago, IL 60607, USA.
Abstract:
The current study assessed the influence of excitotoxic lesions of the insular cortex (IC) on taste-potentiated odor aversion (TPOA) learning. Water-deprived rats initially received a single odor-toxicosis or odor/taste-toxicosis pairing and were subsequently tested, in separate trials, with the odor and the taste stimulus. Indicating TPOA, neurologically intact rats conditioned with the odor/taste compound stimulus acquired significantly stronger odor aversions than normal rats conditioned with the odor stimulus. IC lesions disrupted TPOA, conditioned taste aversion and taste neophobia. The finding that taste did not potentiate odor aversion learning in the IC-lesioned rats provides support for the "within-compound association" analysis but is inconsistent with the "sensory-and-gate" account of TPOA learning.
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