GUSTATORY THALAMUS LESIONS IN THE RAT .2. AVERSIVE AND APPETITIVE TASTE CONDITIONING

The learning capacities of rats with electrolytic lesions of the gusta tory thalamus (GT) were investigated in 3 experiments. In Experiment 1 , the presence of a taste cue failed to overshadow odor aversion learn ing in the lesioned rats, yet these same animals acquired normal taste and odor aversions. Thalamic lesions had no discernible effect on the acquisition of a conditioned flavor preference in Experiment 2. Final ly, GT lesions completely reversed the anticipatory contrast effect sh own by control subjects in Experiment 3. These results suggest that da mage to the GT spares taste detection and recognition and simple assoc iative learning but interferes with learning that involves more comple x gustatory information processing.