Sensory preconditioning in newborn rabbits: from common to distinct odor memories
- 1Developmental Ethology and Cognitive Psychology Group, Research Center for Taste and Feeding Behaviour, UMR 6265 CNRS, 1324 INRA, Université de Bourgogne, 21000 Dijon, France
- 2Nutrition and Integrative Neurobiology Group, INRA 1286, Bordeaux, France
- 3Université de Bordeaux, 33000 Bordeaux, France
Abstract
This study evaluated whether olfactory preconditioning is functional in newborn rabbits and based on joined or independent memory of odorants. First, after exposure to odorants A+B, the conditioning of A led to high responsiveness to odorant B. Second, responsiveness to B persisted after amnesia of A. Third, preconditioning was also functional with two overlapping pairs of odorants (A+B and B+C) and amnesia of one odorant did not affect memory of the others. Thus, incidental pairing of odorants allows reinforcement of one odorant to implicitly reinforce the others, the bond then vanishes, and the memory of each element becomes independent.
Footnotes
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↵4 Corresponding author
E-mail gerard.coureaud{at}u-bourgogne.fr
- Received March 7, 2013.
- Accepted July 11, 2013.
- © 2013, Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
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