Time of day-dependent latent inhibition of conditioned taste aversions in rats*1

Circadian-temporal context and latent inhibition of conditioned taste aversion: Effect of restriction in the intake of the conditioned taste stimulus

“…This procedure shows that animals tested in temporal contexts different from that of the conditioning acquire less aversion, which is similar to what has been consistently described by changing the spatial context (Boakes, Elliot, Swinbourne, & Westbrook, 1997;Bonardi, Honey, & Hall, 1990;Bouton, 1993;Bouton, Westbrook, Corcoran, & Maren, 2006;González, Garcia-Burgos, & Hall, 2012;Pearce & Bouton, 2001;Rosas & Bouton 1997). Similarly, the latent inhibition of CTA can be disrupted by changes in the time of day between preexposure and conditioning (Manrique et al, 2004;Molero et al, 2005). Nevertheless, the characteristics of the procedure that facilitate this temporal specificity of the latent inhibition (or dependency of latent inhibition on the temporal context-time of dayof preexposure and conditioning) are not entirely known.…”

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

“…As context includes the time of day, and LI is sensitive to changes in this variable (e.g., Manrique, Molero, Ballesteros, Moron, Gallo, and Fenton, 2004), all experimental sessions were conducted starting at the same time each day (10:00 AM) to avoid any effect of temporal factors on LI.…”

“…As can be seen in the table, the context combinations are complicated by the use of the animal's home cage as experimental context, and by the novelty or familiarity of the new context introduced at the corresponding stage. An inspection of the results reveals a complex pattern that is difficult to interpret, with similar context changes (as in the ABA condition) either inducing a reduction of LI (Manrique et al, 2004), unchanged LI (Chamizo, 1996;Moron et al, 2002) or even increased LI (Westbrook et al, 2000, Exp. 2). Table 1 about here…”

Amygdala and Taste Learning

“…However, the influence of temporal context in associative processes is also a good model for understanding the mechanisms of learning and memory [133]. Regarding the modulating effect of time of day, we have shown in our laboratory that the time of day in the sleep/wake cycle acts as a contextual cue and modulates latent inhibition of taste aversion learning [134] and CTA retrieval [135].…”

“…Temporal context dependency also seems to be mediated by the hippocampus in the paradigm of latent inhibition of taste aversion learning [147], as well as in CTA [14]. However, no studies have reported the role of the amygdala in the temporal modulation of taste learning [134,135]. It is possible that the amygdala is involved in CTA selectively but not in the phenomenon of latent inhibition in this paradigm, nor in the contextual dependency of this phenomenon.…”