title: Pavlovian conditioning with ethanol and lithium: effects on heart rate and taste aversion in rats.
abstract: Rats received paired injections of either ethanol or saline as the conditioned stimulus and lithium chloride as the unconditioned stimulus (US) in a Pavlovian differential conditioning paradigm. Lithium chloride evoked a large deceleration in heart rate (80-100 beats per minute) as an unconditioned response. As a result of 10 conditioning trials, the substance paired with LiCl elicited a lower average heart rate than that elicited by the unpaired substance. Moreover, animals that received ethanol-LiCl injections subsequently were more averse to the taste of ethanol than animals receiving saline-LiCl pairings. However, there were no differences in ethanol's ability to serve as the US to induce an aversion to a novel flavor solution (i.e., the Avfail phenomenon was not observed). The overall pattern of results underscores the value of using multiple indexes of learning in drug-drug conditioning paradigms.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002712:Chlorides / Q000506:poisoning*; D003214:Conditioning, Classical / Q000187:drug effects*; D004326:Drinking / Q000187:drug effects; D000431:Ethanol / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000187:drug effects*; D008094:Lithium / Q000506:poisoning*; D018021:Lithium Chloride; D009115:Muridae; D013649:Taste / Q000187:drug effects*
chemical_list: D002712:Chlorides; D000431:Ethanol; D008094:Lithium; D018021:Lithium Chloride