Stress and consumption: inescapable shock, neophobia, and quinine finickiness in rats

Exposure to inescapable shock has been shown to result in reduced consumption of quinine in water (the finickiness effect) in rats. In the present experiment, (a) a clear difference in finickiness occurred between male adult rats exposed to inescapable shock and those exposed to escapable shock (the first such demonstration), (b) finickiness was reinstated 20 days later, and (c) finickiness was eliminated by quinine exposure prior to treatment. The first 2 results support the role of uncontrollability and/or unpredictability in finickiness and extend its potential impact to long-term consequences. This allows greater potential for the modeling of long-term effects, such as eating disorders and depression in humans. The finding that preexposure to quinine eliminated finickiness is contrary to current accounts of the effect. Accounts of finickiness are proposed in terms of classically conditioned aversions, bitterness, and neuropeptide control of ingestion.