title: Effects of excitotoxic lesions of the gustatory thalamus on latent inhibition and blocking of conditioned taste aversion in rats.
abstract: The influence of bilateral excitotoxic lesions of the gustatory thalamus on latent inhibition and blocking of conditioned taste aversion (CTA) was examined in two experiments. In Experiment 1, rats with thalamic lesions showed normal latent inhibition by acquiring a CTA that was significantly weaker when the conditioned stimulus (CS) was familiar than when it was novel. In Experiment 2, the preconditioned element (sodium chloride) of a compound CS blocked the acquisition of a CTA to the novel element (sucrose) in normal rats. Irrespective of whether sodium chloride was preconditioned or not, rats with thalamic lesions showed little or no aversion to sucrose following compound conditioning. Overall, the results provide no support for the experimental hypothesis that thalamic lesions disrupt decremental changes in the attentional processing of gustatory stimuli.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA. sreilly@uic.edu
authors.forename: Steve
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Reilly
authors.forename: Marina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bornovalova
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Dengler
authors.forename: Radmila
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Trifunovic
mesh_terms: D019342:Acetic Acid; D000818:Animals; D001362:Avoidance Learning / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D003214:Conditioning, Classical / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D018021:Lithium Chloride / Q000494:pharmacology; D008297:Male; D009433:Neural Inhibition / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012965:Sodium Chloride; D013395:Sucrose; D013649:Taste / Q000502:physiology*; D013788:Thalamus / Q000473:pathology* / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D012965:Sodium Chloride; D013395:Sucrose; D018021:Lithium Chloride; D019342:Acetic Acid