The interaction of age and unconditioned stimulus intensity on long-trace conditioned flavor aversion in rats

To see if the neural representation of the conditioned stimulus (CS) is available to old‐age rats beyond the time it is available to young adults, the intensity of the unconditioned stimulus (US) and the length of the CS–US interval were systematically varied in a trace conditioning experiment. Results indicated that increasing US intensity extends the interval over which trace conditioning is evident in old‐age rats but not in young adults, suggesting that trace decay occurs more rapidly in young rats. Results were interpreted in terms of age differences in the workings of hypothesized biochemical timing mechanisms that may directly influence the ability to associate stimuli over trace intervals in conditioned taste‐aversion procedures. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 40: 131–137, 2002. DOI 10.1002/dev.10018