title: Dietary sodium deprivation does not alter taste sensitivity in the rat.
abstract: The influence of 33 days of combined dietary sodium and water deprivation on the taste sensitivity and responsivity of the rat to a wide range of NaCl solutions and discrimination tasks was examined using double-blind procedures, high-precision gustometry, and an automated operant go/no-go task. Sodium concentration in urine and saliva but not plasma decreased significantly only in the sodium-deficient rats. The same measures remained unchanged in control animals. Nonparametric measures of taste sensitivity and responsivity to NaCl did not differ between sodium-deficient and control animals and performance on taste discrimination, reversal learning, and lick-rate tasks remained the same between the groups as well. The present results support and extend previous findings that dietary-induced sodium deficiency increases NaCl and water consumption, but alters neither the sodium-deficient rat's taste sensitivity and responsivity nor performance on simple and complex tasks in which tastants serve as cues for discriminative responding.
authors.affiliation: Psychology Department, Glassboro State College, NJ 08028-1723.
authors.forename: G M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Brosvic
authors.forename: N E
authors.initials: NE
authors.lastname: Hoey
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001066:Appetite / Q000502:physiology; D002814:Chorda Tympani Nerve / Q000502:physiology; D004039:Diet, Sodium-Restricted; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology; D004573:Electrolytes / Q000097:blood; D005518:Food Preferences / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains; D012193:Reversal Learning / Q000502:physiology; D013649:Taste / Q000502:physiology*; D013652:Taste Threshold / Q000502:physiology; D014868:Water Deprivation / Q000502:physiology; D014882:Water-Electrolyte Balance / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D004573:Electrolytes