TAIL PINCH INDUCED FLUID INGESTION - INTERACTIONS OF TASTE AND DEPRIVATION

Tail pinch (TP) can induce many consummatory behaviors in rats, but it does not induce rats to drink water. Seeking to explain this exception, we designed these experiments to examine the effects of taste cues and deprivation state on drinking during TP. Food deprived rats increased drinking of sweetened milk and sweetened water, but not of plain milk during TP. TP did not alter the drinking of quinine flavored milk. Deprivation state had a large interactive effect on TP drinking. Water deprived rats decreased drinking of water, and did not increase drinking of any fluids during TP. Water deprivation thus appears to inhibit the facilitatory effects of TP on drinking of sweetened fluids. The facilitatory effects of TP are not limited to sweet fluids, since non-deprived rats were found to drink saline and plain milk in addition to sweetened milk and sweetened water. The contribution of these results to our understanding of stress and reward mechanisms is discussed, together with implications for the recently emphasized parallels between the effects of TP and other forms of stimulation-induced ingestive behaviors. © 1979.