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The interaction of age and unconditioned stimulus intensity on long‐trace conditioned flavor aversion in rats
Author(s) -
Misanin James R.,
Goodhart Mark G.,
Anderson Matthew J.,
Hinderliter Charles F.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
developmental psychobiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.055
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1098-2302
pISSN - 0012-1630
DOI - 10.1002/dev.10018
Subject(s) - unconditioned stimulus , classical conditioning , conditioning , psychology , stimulus (psychology) , taste aversion , developmental psychology , audiology , neuroscience , cognitive psychology , taste , medicine , mathematics , statistics
To see if the neural representation of the conditioned stimulus (CS) is available to old‐age rats beyond the time it is available to young adults, the intensity of the unconditioned stimulus (US) and the length of the CS–US interval were systematically varied in a trace conditioning experiment. Results indicated that increasing US intensity extends the interval over which trace conditioning is evident in old‐age rats but not in young adults, suggesting that trace decay occurs more rapidly in young rats. Results were interpreted in terms of age differences in the workings of hypothesized biochemical timing mechanisms that may directly influence the ability to associate stimuli over trace intervals in conditioned taste‐aversion procedures. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 40: 131–137, 2002. DOI 10.1002/dev.10018