Familiarization and cross-familiarization of wheel running and LiCl in conditioned taste aversion

Familiarization with an unconditioned stimulus (US) interferes with the learning of subsequent Pavlovian conditioned associations. We conducted a series of experiments exploiting this US preexposure effect to elucidate the underlying mechanism of conditioned taste aversion in rats induced by voluntary wheel running. Experiment 1 demonstrated that running-induced taste aversion was alleviated if rats had sufficient experience of running in advance. In Experiments 2A and 2B, preexposure to wheel running had no effect on subsequent taste aversion conditioning by lithium chloride (LiCl) injection. In Experiment 3, however, we observed a weak partial interference from the LiCl injection pretreatment to the subsequent conditioning by wheel running US. This US crossover effect suggests the possibility that wheel running and LiCl injection share a common or similar physiological mechanism in inducing taste aversion.