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Conditioned taste aversion (CTA) is a learning paradigm in which a once palatable taste becomes aversive after it is paired with gastric malaise. When a taste is familiar, later learning of a CTA to that taste is reduced. This process is called latent inhibition (LI). Taste aversion learning has been thought to be hippocampal-independent, as hippocampal (HPC) lesions have been shown to have no effect on CTA. In contrast, LI of CTA is enhanced by HPC lesions. We have shown that muscimol inactivation of the HPC enhances LI of CTA, replicating the result of lesion studies. Surprisingly, we also found that inactivating the HPC with muscimol during conditioning enhances CTA. I am interested in the mechanisms behind the inactivation-induced enhancement of CTA and LI. It is possible that the HPC and the amygdala, a structure implicated in CTA, interact during taste exposure and conditioning. The next phase of this study will involve recording from single units in the basolateral amygdala during tastant delivery in order to compare activity when the HPC is intact to activity when the HPC is inactivated. |
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 Brandeis University |
 Brandeis University Dept. of Psychology |
 Volen Center for Complex Systems |
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