Some effects of rotation and centrifugally produced high gravity on taste aversion in rats

Abstract

Rats were exposed to a single pairing of grape juice and rotation or rotation plus high gravity (5 g or 10 g). They were then tested separately for grape juice consumption over the next several days. High gravity did not reduce the amount of grape juice consumed, and nonrotated controls drank significantly more throughout testing. A high resistance to extinction was evidenced by the fact that drinking suppression was maintained for the experimental groups throughout five tests.

Vestibular lesions selectively abolish body rotation-induced, but not lithium-induced, conditioned taste aversions (oral rejection responses) in rats.

“…There also is evidence for the occurrence of motion sickness in animals, such as rats, which do not possess an emetic reflex (Hatcher, 1924). Body rotation can be used as an effective manipulation, when paired with a novel taste, in the production of a conditioned taste avoidance (CTA) in a variety of nonemetic species (Braun & McIntosh, 1973; Fox, Lauber, Daunton, Phillips, & Diaz, 1984; Hutchinson, 1973; McCoy, Nallan, & Pace, 1980; Ossenkopp, 1983; Ossenkopp & Frisken, 1982; Ossenkopp & Ossenkopp, 1990; Ossenkopp & Tu, 1984) as well as emetic species (e.g., Arwas, Rolnick, & Lubow, 1989; Fox, Corcoran, & Brizzee, 1990; Mellor & White, 1978; Roy & Brizzee, 1979). In addition, body rotation has been shown to induce such typical signs of motion sickness as reductions in body temperature (Ossenkopp, Rabi, Eckel, & Hargreaves, 1994) and spontaneous motor activity (Eskin & Riccio, 1966; Ossenkopp, Rabi, Eckel, & Hargreaves, 1994; Riccio, Igarashi & Eskin, 1967).…”

Motion sickness in quail: Body-rotation-induced conditioned fluid aversions in C. coturnix japonica.

“…However, it is not at all clear that these species possess an emetic reflex, and the absence of such a response, when an animal is subjected to the appropriate vestibular stimulation, cannot be taken as evidence for immunity to motion sickness. Rats are not capable of emesis (Hatcher, 1924); nevertheless, successful demonstrations of motion sickness in these animals have been obtained by pairing a novel taste stimulus with subsequent exposure to body rotation or other types of vestibular stimulation (e.g., Braun & Mclntosh, 1973;Fox & Daunton, 1982;Green & Rachlin, 1973;McCoy, Nallan, & Pace, 1980;Ossenkopp, 1983;Ossenkopp & Frisken, 1982). The subsequent strong avoidance of this novel taste stimulus (conditioned taste aversion) by the rats has been taken as evidence for presence of motion sickness induced by the vestibular stimulation.…”

Defecation as an index of motion sickness in the rat

“…Another method used to index the aversive consequences (VCR) of body rotation in rats is the conditioned-taste-avoidance procedure. Pairing a novel taste, such as saccharin, with the body rotation procedure results in a conditioned avoidance of saccharin with multiple conditioning trials (Green & Rachlin, 1973;Hutchison, 1973) or even with a single conditioning trial (Braun & Mcintosh, 1973;McCoy, Nallan, & Pace, 1980). Conditioned taste aversions have been obtained with delays of up to 30 min between access to the novel taste solution and exposure to the body rotation procedure (Haroutunian & Riccio, 1975 1971) for 1 h; one bottle contained tap water, the other bottle saccharin solution.…”