Conditioned Taste Aversion and Latent Inhibition Following Extensive Taste Preexposure in Rats with Insular Cortex Lesions

Lesions of the insular cortex (IC) attenuate acquisition of conditioned taste aversions (CTAs). We have suggested that this impairment is the expected consequence of a failure of IC-lesioned (ICX) rats to recognize unfamiliar taste stimuli as novel. That is, ICX rats treat novel taste stimuli as if they are familiar and as a result show a latent inhibition-like retardation of learning. This account anticipates that ICX rats should acquire CTAs at the same slow rate as normal rats that are familiar with the taste stimulus. The present experiment confirmed this hypothesis in a design that compared CTA acquisition in normal and ICX rats following either extensive taste familiarization or no taste familiarization prior to conditioning.