Taste Neophobia, Latent Inhibition of Taste Aversion and Object Recognition Memory in Adolescent Rats.

Background: Adolescence in mammals is a period marked by increased novelty-seeking and enhanced responsiveness to the stressful properties of novel stimuli. Despite the need to taste potentially toxic novel foods during the adolescent growth spurt, there has been little study of taste neophobia and its attenuation.

Method: Four experiments were carried out to compare taste neophobia and related memory processes in male and female adolescent (PND28) and adult (PND70) Wistar rats.