An ear for quality: Differential associative characteristics of taste-potentiated auditory and odor avoidance

Taste-potentiated odor aversion learning in rats with lesions of the insular cortex

The current study assessed the influence of excitotoxic lesions of the insular cortex (IC) on taste-potentiated odor aversion (TPOA) learning. Water-deprived rats initially received a single odor-toxicosis or odor/taste-toxicosis pairing and were subsequently tested, in separate trials, with the odor and the taste stimulus. Indicating TPOA, neurologically intact rats conditioned with the odor/taste compound stimulus acquired significantly stronger odor aversions than normal rats conditioned with the odor stimulus. IC lesions disrupted TPOA, conditioned taste aversion and taste neophobia. The finding that taste did not potentiate odor aversion learning in the IC-lesioned rats provides support for the "within-compound association" analysis but is inconsistent with the "sensory-and-gate" account of TPOA learning.

Within-compound associations are not sufficient to produce taste-mediated odor potentiation

Rats were used in two flavor-aversion experiments to determine if within-compound associations could be detected with a taste+odor compound that would not support taste-mediated odor potentation. In Experiment 1, following taste+odor compound conditioning, postconditioning taste extinction significantly weakened the odor aversion. In Experiment 2, following taste+odor compound conditioning, postconditioning taste inflation significantly strengthened the odor aversion. There was no evidence that taste potentiated the odor aversion in either Experiment 1 or 2. Thus, the results demonstrate that the presence of within-compound associations is not sufficient to produce taste-mediated odor potentiation. We offer a mediated conditioning explanation to account for the results of these two experiments.