The selective associability of taste aversion learning and its brain mechanisms in the rat

Abstract

This article reviews the brain mechanisms of taste aversion learning in the rat. First, behavioral experiments on taste aversion learning are reviewed. In this section, the experiment of Garcia and Koelling (1966), and the concepts of belongingness (Garcia et al., 1974) and preparedness (Seligman, 1970) are introduced. Then, studies in the field of behavioral neuroscience are reviewed and summarized. According to the results of several experiments, the parabrachial nucleus and the amygdala are suggested to play important roles in taste aversion learning. Finally, experiments on taste-potentiated odor aversion suggest that the amygdala could be a possible site where the selective associability in taste aversion learning occurs. This article offers implications for the mechanisms of taste aversion learning and information about its brain mechanisms for the fields of learning theory, ethology and for the clinical areas of phobias and anorexia.