Running-based food aversion learning in freely-fed and hydrated rats: Daily monitoring of running-induced nausea by measuring kaolin clay ingestion

•This study demonstrated taste aversion learning in freely fed and hydrated rats.•The target taste was tteok rice cakes, and the emetic treatment was wheel running.•The tteok-running paired rats consumed less tteok compared to the unpaired rats.•A daily reduction in tteok consumption was demonstrated in the second experiment.•Kaolin clay ingestion indicated that wheel running induced nausea in the rats. The main objective of this research was to demonstrate food aversion learning in rats with unrestricted access to food and water, using wheel running as the unconditioned stimulus. Experiment 1 showed that the target-running paired training group consumed a statistically smaller amount of the target food (tteok rice cakes) compared to the target/running unpaired control group, but the decrease in consumption over days in the paired group was not fully supported by a statistical test. Experiment 2a improved the methodology by familiarizing rats with tteok before training, which resulted in both a statistically significant group effect and a statistically significant daily decrease in tteok consumption. Experiment 2b demonstrated that tteok aversion could be reacquired after an extinction phase. These experiments indicate that running-based tteok aversion in non-deprived rats is a valid example of Pavlovian conditioning and suggest that wheel running can cause similar effects in unrestricted rats as observed in food- or water-restricted rats. Additionally, daily measurements of kaolin clay ingestion suggested that wheel running induced nausea in the rats of these experiments.