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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1980 Oct;77(10):6204–6206. doi: 10.1073/pnas.77.10.6204

Rapid taste-aversion learning by an isolated molluscan central nervous system.

J J Chang, A Gelperin
PMCID: PMC350243  PMID: 6934546

Abstract

The isolated lips and nervous system of the terrestrial slug Limax maximus will produce some of the feeding behavior of the intact animal; i.e., they generate the rhythmic neural activity characteristic of ingestion in response to food extracts applied to the lips. This preparation will respond to a variety of food extracts that elicit feeding in the whole animal. This provides the opportunity for aversive conditioning experiments involving taste discrimination. Pairing lip chemostimulation by attractive food extracts with lip chemostimulation by using bitte plant secondary substances can cause the isolatd brain to selectively suppress its neural response to one food extract while remaining responsive to another. Such isolated brains can learn after one or two trials and retain the learning for more than 8 hr.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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