Failure to show modification of male golden hamster mating behavior through taste/odor aversion learning.

This research investigated whether the dependence of mating behavior in the male hamster on olfactory and gustatory stimuli could be used with the taste/odor conditioning paradigm to alter sexual behavior. Preliminary experiments established the effectiveness of lithium chloride and methyl-atropine nitrate in forming aversions to a saccharin solution. These same agents failed to modify mating behavior when the conditional stimulus was an estrous female hamster. Animals made ill after an exposure to a cotton swab containing phenylacetic acid later showed increased latencies in the initiation of mating with an estrous female swabbed with phenylacetic acid. Animals given three punished exposures to phenylacetic acid also showed increased latency to initiate mating and decreased anogenital sniff-licking with a phenylacetic acid-swabbed estrous female. However, no other measures of mating behavior were altered.