The role of water deprivation on the hedonic response in conditioned flavor preference.

Three experiments were conducted to further investigate the role of thirst in conditioned flavor preference in rats. Rats were presented with a compound solution of flavor and sucrose during a conditioning trial and subsequently tested for conditioned flavor preference. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that rats exhibited a preference for the flavor following weak, but not strong water deprivation and water deprivation did not influence the preference based on the association between flavor and calories. Further, Experiment 3 demonstrated that water deprivation did not affect the learning process of conditioned flavor preference. These results suggest that the expression of the hedonic response elicited by the pairing of flavor and sucrose was affected by water deprivation.