Table 1.

Description of acclimation, testing, and training of animals for both pasta biting and tongue training procedures.

Stages of Training
Week #	Stage	Description	Measures
Week 1	Acclimation	Animals housed on a reverse light-dark cycle; handled for seven days; pasta provided in home cages	None
Week 2	Water Restriction & Pasta Testing Room Acclimation	Animal access to water progressively restricted; introduced to the pasta testing; pasta in their home cages	Pasta Acclimation
Week 3	Tongue Training & Pasta Test Apparatus Acclimation & Food Restriction	Animals trained to lick the tongue force transducer at 0.2g; given pasta in the pasta data collection apparatus; access to food gradually restricted	Tongue Training & Pasta Apparatus Acclimation
Week 4	Completion of Tongue Training Acclimation & Baseline EMP & Pre-Training Pasta Test Data Collection	Tongue training acclimation is completed; baseline EMP testing occurs for three days; each animal is trialed and recorded with six pieces of pasta each; total time for pasta testing occurs over three days maximum.	1. Tongue Training Acclimation 2. Baseline EMP Calculation 3. Pre-Training Pasta Test Data Collection
Week 5–12	Tongue Exercise Training	Over 8 weeks, force at which animals press to receive water reward is incremented up, based on EMP values; final week of training, animals are re-acclimated with pasta testing apparatus and given pasta in home cages	Tongue Exercise Training
Week 13	Final EMP Testing Post-Training Pasta Test	Final EMP testing occurs for three days; each animal is trialed and recorded with six pieces of pasta each; total time for pasta testing occurs over three days maximum.	1. Final EMP Testing 2. Post-Training Pasta Test

^aEMP=Estimated Maximal Press