Illness-induced taste aversions in normal and bulbectomized hamsters

Baitshyness acquisition and extinction in male Syrian golden hamsters was evaluated using saccharin solution as the target flavor and 75 or 150 mg/kg injections of cyclophosphamide as the illness-inducing agent. Conditioned aversions were obtained in drug-injected animals, but extinction was rapid and complete within twelve days of two-bottle preference testing. A second experiment using the same animals found that bilateral aspiration of the olfactory bulbs disrupted the subsequent acquisition of an aversion to milk. Baitshyness appears to have advantages over other tasks producing avoidance behavior in the hamster, and the hamster may be useful in neural investigations of conditioned taste aversions which have previously concentrated on the rat.