Journal
PHYSIOLOGY & BEHAVIOR
Volume 263, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2023.114137
Keywords
Inflammation; Immune challenge; Learning; Memory; Feeding; Aspirin
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Food is essential for survival and brings pleasure. The Garcia effect describes the phenomenon where animals develop aversion to a novel food after experiencing sickness. This study showed that lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced a Garcia-like effect in a species of snails, leading to long-lasting feeding suppression. The results also revealed strain-specific variations in memory duration and suggested potential implications in understanding cognitive traits and the immune-central nervous system interaction.
Food is not only necessary for our survival but also elicits pleasure. However, when a novel food is followed sometime later by nausea or sickness animals form a long-lasting association to avoid that food. This phenomenon is called the 'Garcia effect'. We hypothesized that lipopolysaccharide (LPS) could be used as the sickness-inducing stimulus to produce a Garcia-like effect in inbred and wild populations of Lymnaea stagnalis. We first demonstrated that the injection of 25 mu g (6.25 mu g/mL) of Escherichia coli-derived LPS serotype O127:B8 did not by itself alter snails' feeding behavior. Then we showed that the presentation of a novel appetitive stimulus (i.e., carrot slurry) and LPS resulted in a taste-specific and long-lasting feeding suppression (i.e., the Garcia-like effect). We also found strain-specific variations in the duration of the long-term memory (LTM). That is, while the LTM for the Garcia-like effect in W-strain snails persisted for 24h, LTM persisted for 48h in freshly collected Margo snails and their F1 offspring. Finally, we demonstrated that the exposure to a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) before the LPS injection prevented both the LPS-induced sickness state and the Garcia-like effect from occurring. The results of this study may pave the way for new research that aims at (1) uncovering the conserved molecular mechanisms underlying the Garcia-like effect, (2) understanding how cognitive traits vary within and between species, and (3) creating a holistic picture of the complex dialogue between the immune and central nervous systems.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available