Amnesia produced by anisomycin in an appetitive task is not due to conditioned aversion

Two experiments investigated the effects of lithium chloride (LiCl) and anisomycin (ANI) in a water reward Y-maze task. In Experiment 1, male CD-1 mice given weak or strong training were injected post-training with either saline or LiCl (150 mg/kg), which has been reported to produce conditioned aversion in mice. One day after training, both LiCl groups avoided the rewarded arm of the maze and drank less water than saline-injected controls. Two days after training, the strongly trained LiCl mice showed avoidance, while both LiCl groups drank less water. In Experiment 2, weakly trained mice given pre- and post-training ANI (30 mg/kg) were amnesic on the second test day compared to mice that received post-trial saline. However, water consumption was increased on the test day for both groups. LiCl produced a different pattern of results than ANI in this task. On the basis of these results, it is suggested that amnesia produced by ANI is due to impaired memory formation and not to conditioned aversion.