Background
The interactions among experience, emotion, and memory are considered to be instrumental
in the ontogeny and maintenance of acquired emotional and behavioral disorders (e.g.,
phobias). Here we address the question whether an anxiety-like state can associate
with taste to produce conditioned taste aversion (CTA).
Methods
We have used an anxiogenic agent, the 5-HT2C receptor agonist meta-chlorophenylpiperazine (mCPP), to induce an anxiety-like emotional
state in rats after consumption of an unfamiliar tastant.
Results
The anxiogenic agent induced CTA. The mCPP-induced CTA could be prevented by concomitant
administration of ethanol, which is known to reverse mCPP-induced anxiety-like behavior,
at a concentration that had no effect on CTA memory. In contrast, ethanol did not
prevent LiCl-induced CTA. Administration of mCPP before the consumption of the tastant
had no effect on the preference for that tastant.
Conclusions
Taken together, these results indicate that anxiety-like state can serve as the unconditioned
stimulus in CTA training. This finding may be relevant to the ontogeny of pathologies
involving food aversion.
Key words
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
August 16,
2004
Received in revised form:
August 10,
2004
Received:
April 17,
2004
Identification
Copyright
© 2004 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
