Abstract
We examined developmental changes in the reversal of a learned discrimination in an olfactory conditioning paradigm in three experiments. Preweanling rats were exposed to an odor (CS+) paired with footshock and a different odor (CS−) that was explicitly unpaired with footshock. The rats were then immediately tested for their preference between the CS+ and CS− odors. In Experiment 1, animals trained at 12 or 18 days of age showed equivalent conditioned aversions to the CS+. When the significance of the cues was reversed, the younger animals showed rapid reversal learning; that is, their aversion to the original CS-I- was displaced by an aversion to the original CS−. However, the 18-day-old animals were slower to acquire discrimination reversal. In Experiment 2, a similar pattern of results emerged when animals were given separate preference tests involving the CS+ versus a novel odor, or the CS− versus a novel odor. In Experiment 3, intact 18-day-old rats and 18-day-olds with damage to the septum and fornix showed equivalent conditioned aversions to the CS+. In contrast to the intact animals, however, the lesioned rats showed rapid reversal of the discrimination, which resembled that of intact 12-day-olds. Thus, there appears to be a dramatic change in reversal learning of conditioned odor aversions in rats after the second week of postnatal life. These data are discussed with reference to the role of septo-hippocampal maturation in the ontogeny of olfactory learning.
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This research was supported by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Grant HD17458 to W. G. Hall, and by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH09436 to David Kucharski. The research described in this article has been reviewed by the Health Effects Research Laboratory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and has been approved for publication. Approval does not signify that the contents necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Agency, nor does mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation for use. David Kucharski, at the beginning of a promising career in psychology, died tragically in an automobile accident on October 24, 1987.
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Saperstein, L.A., Kucharski, D., Stanton, M.E. et al. Developmental change in reversal learning of an olfactory discrimination. Psychobiology 17, 293–299 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03337783
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03337783