Disentangling the effects of context change and context familiarity on Latent Inhibition with a Conditioned Taste Aversion procedure

Time-dependent latent inhibition of predator-recognition learning

“…How latent inhibition is influenced by context has been the subject of several studies but almost exclusively in the context of taste-aversion learning by rats. Some of those studies have found that using different environmental chambers between the pre-exposure and conditioning periods decreases the strength of latent inhibition of taste-aversion learning [9]. Others studies have reported findings similar to our study, where different timing between the pre-exposure and conditioning periods weakened latent inhibition [17].…”

“…inhibit the learning of the stimulus as dangerous, a process known as 'latent inhibition' [8]. Demonstrating that latent inhibition has occurred first involves a 'pre-exposure' period when the animal is repeatedly exposed to the stimulus, followed by a 'conditioning' period when the stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus [9]. Subsequently, a 'testing' period is used to determine whether the animal learned the stimulus as a threat.…”

Contextual control of flavor neophobia

“…This result supports the idea that the home cage context favors the establishment of a safe flavor memory trace [19,4]. However, the results do not allow us to identify whether the process responsible for the faster neophobia process is related to the mere familiarization that the animals have received during their long stay at the home cages, or if there exists an additional component that contributes to learned flavor safety.…”

“…Thus, when considering the role played by the animals´ home cages in latent inhibition experiments, De la Casa et al [19] proposed an explanation analogous to the learned safety theory by Rozin and Kalat [9,10] to explain the progressive reduction of conditioned taste aversion observed when the delay between the flavor (the CS) and the gastric malaise (the US) increases. More specifically, the learned safety theory suggests that any new flavor is considered potentially dangerous, but once the animal has consumed the flavor and there are no aversive consequences it is stored as a safe flavor.…”

“…Thus, it has been reported that when using a conditioned taste aversion for reproducing the latent inhibition effect, the animals' home cages seem to have properties that make it easier to establish a safe memory trace of the flavor when it is not followed by relevant consequences [19,20].…”