Alcohol-Mediated Tactile Conditioned Aversions in Infant Rats: Devaluation of Conditioning through Alcohol-Sucrose Associations

• Published in: Neurobiology of learning and memory 1996-09, Vol.66 (2), p.121-132
• Main Authors: Molina, Juan Carlos, Bannoura, Michelle D., Chotro, M.Gabriela, Mckinzie, David L., Arnold, H.Moore, Spear, Norman E.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animals; Animals, Newborn - physiology; Behavioral psychophysiology; Biological and medical sciences; Conditioning (Psychology) - drug effects; Ethanol - pharmacology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Miscellaneous; Perception - drug effects; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Rats; Rats, Sprague-Dawley; Sucrose - pharmacology
• ISSN: 1074-7427; 1095-9564
• DOI: 10.1006/nlme.1996.0053

Three experiments were conducted to assess the plasticity of ethanol-mediated conditioned aversions to a tactile stimulus in infant rats. Ten- and 11-day-old rats first acquired an aversion to a texture, by virtue of its pairing with alcohol-induced intoxication. This first conditioning phase was followed by an associative devaluation procedure, a second phase in which sucrose was intraorally infused during alcohol-induced intoxication. Pups were then tested for their texture preference. Results indicated that infant rats readily express conditioned aversion to a tactile cue as a result of tactile–alcohol pairings and that this associative learning was not state dependent. When alcohol–texture conditioning was followed by sucrose–alcohol pairings, the magnitude of the texture aversion was dramatically reduced (Experiments 1 and 2). In Experiment 3 citric acid rather than sucrose was paired with alcohol intoxication following texture–alcohol pairings. The results indicated that this procedure strengthened texture conditioned aversions in terms of increased resistance to extinction. Taken as a whole these studies indicate that infants rapidly acquire alcohol-mediated texture aversions and that this memory is malleable and can be reduced or potentiated through manipulation of the representation of alcohol's unconditioned properties.