Conditioned Odor Aversion can Enhance the Neophobia to a Novel Odor but not to a Novel Taste

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to examine the enhancing effects of the conditined odor aversion (COA) treatment on the taste and odor NEOPHOBIA. In Experiments 1 and 2, prior COA treatments to orange odor mediated by LiCl (0.6M, 5ml/kg, i. p.) suppressed the lemon-odored water but did not suppress the consumption of citric acid solution (0.025M) (Figs. 1 and 2). Furthermore, a discrimination test between orange flavor (0.5%) and lemon flavor (0.5%) revealed that rats could discriminate these two flavors. This indicates that the prior COA treatments could enhance the odor NEOPHOBIA but not the taste NEOPHOBIA. These results suggest that the enhanced NEOPHOBIA may not be due to illness-induced sensitization nor stimulus familialization along novelty dimension.