Cessation of male rat copulatory behavior using illness as punishment: facilitation with a novel odor

Two experiments were conducted to examine learned copulatory avoidance in male rats. One group of males was presented with receptive females that had been sprayed with a 2% almond solution, and the other group was presented with nonalmond odorous, receptive females. Following each test, males were made ill with lithium chloride (LiCl) by intragastric intubation or intraperitoneal injection. Results showed that male rats presented with almond-odorous females developed significant avoidance of copulatory behavior. Conditioning in males exposed to receptive females without the almond odor developed little, if any, avoidance. In Experiment 2, it was found that route of LiCl administration was not a factor in the results.