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Updated: May 29, 2026

Aversive Associative Learning and Memory Formation by Pairing Two Chemicals in Caenorhabditis elegans
Published on: June 23, 2022
Rho-associated kinase in the gustatory cortex is involved in conditioned taste aversion memory formation but not in
Sahar Sweetat1, Kobi Rosenblum, Raphael Lamprecht
1Department of Neurobiology and Ethology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel.
Abstract:
Rho-associated kinase (ROCK) is intimately involved in cortical neuronal morphogenesis. The present study explores the roles of ROCK in conditioned taste aversion (CTA) memory formation in gustatory cortex (GC) in adult rat. Microinjection of the ROCK inhibitor Y-27632 into the GC 30 min before CTA training or 10 min after the conditioned stimulus (CS) impaired long-term CTA memory (LTM) formation. ROCK inhibitor had no effect on taste aversion when injected before the first LTM test day and did not alter taste aversion on subsequent test days. Microinjection of ROCK inhibitor into GC 30 min before preexposure to the taste CS had no effect on latent inhibition of CTA learning suggesting that ROCK is involved in CS-US association rather than taste learning per se. Cumulatively, these results show that ROCK is needed for normal CTA memory formation but not retrieval, relearning or incidental taste learning.
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