Long-delay associations between drug states produced in rats by injecting two drugs in sequence.

Injection of pentobarbital after a rat has consumed saccharin solution usually produces a mild aversion to the saccharin. However, the pentobarbital-produced aversion is eliminated or attenuated by prior pairings of pentobarbital injections with lithium injections. This is called the Avfail (aversion failure) effect. The present experiments dealt with the effect of the temporal relation of the pentobarbital injection to the lithium injection. After forward pairings (pentobarbital before lithium) with delays between the two injections varying among groups from 2.5 min to 320 min, Avfail was invariably obtained. There was little effect of the length of the forward delay, although the Avfail effect appeared to be slightly stronger at 30-40 min or so. When the two drugs were injected simultaneously or in a backward sequence, there was a weakening of the flavor aversion produced by pentobarbital, but this is attributable to habituation to the drugs, not to Avfail.