Drug discrimination learning using a taste aversion paradigm: An assessment of the role of safety cues (original) (raw)
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Morphine-induced taste avoidance is attenuated with multiple conditioning trials
Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, 1995
SIEGEL, S., L. A. PARKER AND I. MOROZ. Morphine-induced taste avoidance is attenuated with multiple conditioning trials. PHARMACOL BIOCHEM BEHAV so(Z) 299-303, 1995.-Morphine has paradoxical effects in learning experiments. The drug can serve as a reinforcer in several situations; yet rats avoid tastes paired with morphine, much as they avoid tastes paired with an emetic drug such as lithium chloride (LiCl). The results of the present experiment indicate that, in contrast with LiCl-induced taste avoidance, the strength of morphine-induced avoidance is nomnonotonically related to the duration of training. Although taste avoidances produced by both drugs are readily established, the morphine-induced avoidance (unlike the LiCl-induced avoidance) weakens with continued flavor-drug pairings. These results, together with prior findings, suggest that there are distinctive features of morphine-induced taste avoidance.
Effects of distribution of the drug unconditioned stimulus on taste-aversion learning
Physiology & behavior, 1979
Rats injected with lithium chloride after exposure to a taste or olfactory stimulus learn stronger aversions to these cues if the drug is administered in two small injections 35 min apart than if all of the drug is given in a single injection. This facilitation of conditioning produced by distribution of the drug unconditioned stimulus occurs with both low and high lithium doses (Experiments 1 and 2), is more evident in male than in female rats (Experiment 1), and is directly related to the amount of the flavored solution consumed prior to drug treatment (Experiment 4). Increasing the interval between two small drug injections beyond an optimal value results in a progressive loss of the facilitation of conditioning (Experiments 2 and 3), and the optimal drug distribution interval may be shorter for olfactory cues (Experiment 3) than for taste stimuli (Experiments 1 and 2). Control observations (Experiments 5A and 5B) showed that the drug distribution effect is not due to handling or...
Taste-aversion conditioning with expected versus unexpected drug treatment
Journal of Experimental Psychology-animal Behavior Processes, 1977
Following differential conditioning in which a drug-predictive taste solution (D) infused into the oral cavity of rats was followed by a lithium injection and a no-drug-predictive solution (ND) was not reinforced, animals received a backward pairing between lithium and a novel saccharin flavor. Subjects infused with either the D solution or tap water immediately before backward conditioning learned weaker saccharin aversions than animals infused with the ND solution and animals given no infusion at this time (Experiments 1 and 3). These latter groups did not differ from each other (Experiment 3). The interference with aversion learning produced by water infusion appeared to be due to conditioned excitation that accrued to sensations of the infusion process. Extinction of the infusion sensations eliminated blocking produced by the infusion of water (Experiments 4 and 5). The blocking of saccharinaversion learning produced by infusion of the D solution was due, to a large extent, to the conditioned aversiveness of the D taste. Extinction of the aversion to the D taste eliminated the interference with saccharin conditioning (Experiment 2), whereas extinction of the excitatory properties of the infusion process did not prevent the blocking of conditioning by infusion of the D solution (Experiment 5). These results are inconsistent with suggestions that taste-aversion learning is a primitive form of conditioning; rather, they demonstrate the influence of informational variables on conditioned taste aversions.
Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior, 1989
Conditioned taste aversions as a behavioral baseline for drug discrimination learning: Assessment with the dipsogenic compound pentobarbital. Drug Dev. Res. 16:229-236, 1989. Animals injected with pentobarbital prior to the presentation of a saccharin-LiCI pairing and its vehicle prior to saccharin alone rapidly acquired the drug discrimination, avoiding saccharin following the administration of pentobarbital and consuming saccharin in its absence. That drug discrimination was acquired within the taste aversion design even though the stimulus drug itself (i.e., pentobarbital) produced significant increases in consumption in nonconditioned control subjects suggests that the dipsogenic properties of a compound are not necessarily a problem for the assessment of drug discrimination learning within the aversion procedure. The present data, along with prior reports on the effectiveness of the taste aversion design with the stimulus drugs phencyclidine and naloxone, indicate that the conditioned taste aversion procedure may be effective as a general method in the assessment of drug discrimination learning.
Pre-exposure to morphine and the attenuation of conditioned taste aversion in rats
Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, 1978
IO morphine and the utrenucrtion of conditioned tavre crwrsion in rats. PHARMAC. BIOCHEM. BEHAV. 9(5) 639-645, 1978.-Three experiments were done using male Wistar rats to determine whether the mechanisms underlying the attenuation of a conditioned taste aversion to morphine by pre-exposure to the drug were similar to those involved in the development of tolerance to the analgesic response to morphine. This was tested by determining whether the effect of pre-exposure on conditioned taste aversion was situation-specific. In Experiment 1 it was found that having different environments for the pre-exposure injections and for the conditioning injections of morphine had no effect on the attenuation of the taste aversion. This finding was replicated in Experiment 2 in which it was also found that the attenuation of the analgesic effect, tested for in the same animals, was specific to the environment in which repeated injections were given. It was concluded that the attenuation of conditioned taste aversion involved processes different from those responsible for the attenuation of the analgesic effect of morphine. Experiment 3 showed that pairing the pre-exposure injections of morphine with one distinctive taste stimulus prevented the attenuation of the conditioned taste aversion to a second taste stimulus. These results suggest that different associative processes are responsible for the two types of attenuation.
Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, 1981
The effect of post-conditioning exposure to morphine on the retention of a morphine-induced conditioned taste aversion. PHARMAC. BIOCHEM. BEHAV. 14(6) 77%785, 1981.--In the following experiment, multiple injections of morphine sulfate following the acquisition of a morphine-induced taste aversion had no effect on the retention of the previously acquired aversion. Post-conditioning injections of morphine resulted in the development of physical dependence to morphine and led to a decrement in the ability of morphine to induce a subsequent aversion to a second novel taste. This failure of post-conditioning exposures to morphine to affect a previously acquired morphine-induced taste aversion even though tolerance to morphine had occurred was discussed in the context of Rescorla's event-memory model of conditioning.
Drug Development Research, 1989
Conditioned taste aversions as a behavioral baseline for drug discrimination learning: Assessment with the dipsogenic compound pentobarbital. Drug Dev. Res. 16:229-236, 1989. Animals injected with pentobarbital prior to the presentation of a saccharin-LiCI pairing and its vehicle prior to saccharin alone rapidly acquired the drug discrimination, avoiding saccharin following the administration of pentobarbital and consuming saccharin in its absence. That drug discrimination was acquired within the taste aversion design even though the stimulus drug itself (i.e., pentobarbital) produced significant increases in consumption in nonconditioned control subjects suggests that the dipsogenic properties of a compound are not necessarily a problem for the assessment of drug discrimination learning within the aversion procedure. The present data, along with prior reports on the effectiveness of the taste aversion design with the stimulus drugs phencyclidine and naloxone, indicate that the conditioned taste aversion procedure may be effective as a general method in the assessment of drug discrimination learning.
Three experiments examined the effect of sucrose consumption in a novel context on the conditioning of an aversion to that context. In Experiment 1, rats were injected with LiCl after drinking either sucrose (Group SUC-LI) or water (Group WAT-LI) in a novel context (context 2). An unpoisoned control group consumed water in context 2 and was injected with isotonic saline solution (Group WAT-SAL). On test, when presented with saline in context 2, Group WAT-LI consumed less than Group WAT-SAL, suggesting that a conditioned aversion to context 2 developed in Group WAT-LI. Group SUC-LI consumed less than Group WAT-LI, suggesting that the sucrose had potentiated a context aversion in Group SUC-LI. Experiment 2 was similar to Experiment 1, except that rats drank a novel vinegar solution in context 1 before entering context 2 for conditioning. On test, Group SUC-LI drank more vinegar in context 1, and less saline in context 2, than Group WAT-LI, suggesting that sucrose had simultaneously overshadowed vinegar and potentiated an aversion to context 2. Experiments 3a and 3b confirmed that the results of Experiment 2 were due to potentiation rather than generalization of a sucrose aversion to familiar saline.
Stimulus specificity in the acquisition and extinction of conditioned taste aversion
Biological Research, 2007
An experiment evaluated whether the acquisition and extinction of conditioned taste aversion in the rat is stimulus-specific by testing the degree of response transfer between sweet and salty tastes. Animals in the paired-same and paired-different groups received a presentation of a gustatory CS and a cyclophosphamide injection US. Nonconditioned control groups received unpaired CS /US presentations or the CS followed by a vehicle injection. Taste avoidance was evaluated in three nonreinforced test sessions. In the paired-same, unpaired and vehicle groups, all test sessions were conducted with the same flavor as originally used in training, whereas the paired-different group was tested with a novel flavor on the first and second sessions and with the originally trained flavor in last session. Stimulus specific acquisition was apparent in the first test session, when the animals in the group paired-same exhibited lower fluid intake than the other three groups. Evidence of specificity of extinction was apparent in the last test session, when animals in the group paired-different exhibited lower fluid intake than the other three groups. These results provide further evidence of stimulus specificity in acquisition and extinction of conditioned taste aversion, supporting the associative interpretation of these phenomena.