Influence of housing conditions and state of partner on conditioning and extinction of taste aversion to lithium and chlorpromazine

Abstract

Rats were used in two experiments to investigate the influence of social variables on the acquisition of Conditioned Taste Aversion (CTA) to either lithium chloride (10 ml/kg IP of a 0.3-M solution given twice) or chlorpromazine (8 mg/kg IP given four times) and on subsequent extinction. CTA acquisition was not affected by original housing assignment (isolation or paired housing for 15–23 days prior to conditioning), by the shifted social assignment during conditioning, or by the drugged state of the paired animals' partners on drug-scheduled days. However, for both drugs, permanently isolated animals extinguished CTA more slowly than rats housed permanently in pairs. Shifts from isolation to pairing or vice versa failed to alter CTA extinction in the case of lithium, but affected it significantly in chlorpromazine-treated rats. Shifts from isolation to paired housing with an undrugged partner produced faster extinction for lithium than the corresponding group with a drugged partner. For chlorpromazine, the effect of the same shift was exactly the opposite. Overall, the results show that changes in CTA extinction can be a function of social variables.