A DUAL TASTE FOR SACCHARIN IN THE RAT

It has previously been proposed that saccharin has a dual tase for the rat, that is has both sweet and aversive components to its taste, and that the aversion shown to saccharin by alloxan diabetic rats might be accounted for by the diabetes reducing the effectiveness of the sweet component. In this study it is shown that the generalization to saccharin of a conditioned aversion to glucose is reduced or eliminated following alloxan treatment suggesting that the sweet component is reduced, and that the generalization of a conditioned aversion to quinine is enhanced suggesting that the second component of the saccharin taste is quinine-like.