Abstract
Prior research indicates a role for the gustatory insular cortex (GC) in taste neophobia. Rats with lesions of the GC show much weaker avoidance to a novel and potentially dangerous taste than do neurologically intact animals. The current study used the retention of conditioned taste aversion (CTA) as a tool to determine whether the GC modulates neophobia by processing taste novelty or taste danger. The results show that GC lesions attenuate CTA retention (Experiment 1) and impair taste neophobia (Experiment 2). Given that normal CTA retention does not involve the processing of taste novelty, the pattern of results suggests that the GC is involved in taste neophobia via its function in processing the danger conveyed by a taste stimulus.
Highlights
For the hungry animal, eating a familiar, nutritious food is life sustaining and pleasurable
1 We have previously demonstrated that rats with gustatory insular cortex (GC) lesions can form a taste memory because they show normal recovery from taste neophobia (e.g., Lin et al, 2009)
As revealed in Experiment 1, the GCX rats did not fully retain the conditioned taste aversion (CTA) memory acquired prior to surgery. This CTA retention deficit is in accord with the results obtained in prior studies which employed non-selective lesions that damaged intrinsic neurons as well as fibers passing through the GC
Summary
For the hungry animal, eating a familiar, nutritious food is life sustaining and pleasurable. It is assumed that fear of the life-threatening potential of a new food limits intake on the initial encounter, a phenomenon known as taste neophobia. If no harmful internal consequences follow ingestion, the initial fear reaction dissipates and consumption increases as the taste of the food becomes viewed as safe and more pleasurable (i.e., recovery from neophobia occurs; Barnett, 1963, Corey, 1978; Domjan, 1977; Lin, Amodeo, Arthurs, & Reilly, 2012). If consumption is followed by aversive consequences (e.g., gastrointestinal malaise; GIM) the food will be avoided on later encounters, a phenomenon termed conditioned taste aversion (CTA; Barker, Best, & Domjan, 1977; Braveman & Bronstein, 1985; Milgram, Krames & Alloway, 1977; Reilly & Schachtman, 2009). This work has implicated the insular cortex, the nature of this involvement is not fully understood
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