Taste discriminations in rats lacking anterior insular gustatory neocortex

Previous neurobehavioral investigations have demonstrated that the anterior insular gustatory neocortex (AIGN) mediates taste-illness learning. The present experiment evaluated taste discriminations in rats lacking AIGN. Two groups of rats received distinct surgical treatments. One-half of the animals received bilateral electrolytic lesion placements in the AIGN: Remaining animals received anesthesia and scalp incisions only. Following postoperative recovery animals received standard two-bottle preference tests with various concentrations of sucrose to evaluate gustatory reactivity. Animals thereafter received two-bottle discrimination tests with selected sucrose concentrations. At the conclusion of preference tests and discrimination tests with sucrose, preference tests and discrimination tests were conducted with sodium chloride. Following those tests animals received taste aversion conditioning to determine whether or not AIGN lesions impaired taste-illness learning. Results of two-bottle taste tests indicated that AIGN lesions do not obviously alter taste reactivity nor taste discriminations to preferred concentrations of sucrose and NaCl. Anterior insular lesions did, however, impair normal taste aversion learning. These results, in combination with those of previous investigators, provide further evidence that the AIGN preferentially contributes to taste learning functions.