Food and water deprivation disrupts latent inhibition with an auditory fear conditioning procedure

Latent inhibition (LI), operationally defined as the reduced conditioned response to a stimulus that has been preexposed before conditioning, seems to be determined by the interaction of different processes that includes attentional, associative, memory, motivational, and emotional factors. In this paper we focused on the role of deprivation level on LI intensity using an auditory fear conditioning procedure with rats. LI was observed when the animals were non-deprived, but it was disrupted when the rats were water- or food-deprived. We propose that deprivation induced an increase in attention to the to-be-CS, and, as a result, LI was disrupted in deprived animals. The implications of the results for the current interpretations of LI are also discussed.