Learned taste aversion to saccharin produced by orally consumed d-amphetamine.

Rats were presented with solutions containing both saccharin and d-amphetamine and the development of taste aversions to solutions of either or both of these substances was studied. In Experiment 1 it was found that taste aversions developed to solutions of saccharin (1 mg/ml) which contained amphetamine at concentrations of 0.01, 0.03 and 0.1 mg/ml. Experiment 2 showed that a taste aversion conditioned to a solution of saccharin (2 mg/ml) and amphetamine (0.2 mg/ml) generalised to solutions containing saccharin at concentrations between 0.625 and 20 mg/ml but not to a solution containing only amphetamine. In the third experiment it was found that the degree of generalisation of a taste aversion to lower saccharin concentrations depended upon the concentration used during conditioning trials. When the conditioning concentration was 0.625 mg/ml the aversion generalised to concentrations as low as 0.075 mg/ml but when a 10 mg/ml solution was used for conditioning the aversion did not generalise to concentrations below 2 mg/ml. The characteristics of taste aversions conditioned with orally consumed amphetamine are similar to those of conditioning involving injections of the drug.