Appetitive conditioning in neonatal rats: conditioned ingestive responding to stimuli paired with oral infusions of milk

Abstract

Components of rat pups' ingestive responses to orally infused milk came to be elicited by a novel odor conditioned stimulus (cedar) that had been repeatedly paired with milk infusions (Experiment I). Pups responded specifically to one odor, and they did not generalize their conditioned responding to either another odor or an unscented airstream (Experiment II). Ingestive responses could also be conditioned to a vibrotactile CS paired with milk, although levels of conditioned responding were lower than were obtained with an odor CS (Experiment III). Pups' internal state determined the effectiveness of training, in that pups that were removed from their dam for 24 hr showed reliable conditioned responding, while nondeprived pups and dehydrated pups did not (Experiment IV). Finally, pups showed retention of conditioned responding for at least several days after training (Experiment V).