Exposure to a Context Previously Associated with Nausea Elicits Conditioned Gaping in Rats: a Model of Anticipatory Nausea

Following one or more chemotherapy treatments, many patients report that they experience anticipatory nausea. This phase of nausea has been interpreted as a classically conditioned response where a conditional association develops between the contextual clinic cues and the nausea and/or vomiting that developed following treatment. Although rats do not vomit, they display a distinctive gaping reaction when exposed a flavored solution previously paired with a toxin. Here we report that, even in the absence of a flavored solution, rats display conditioned gaping reactions during exposure to a distinctive context previously paired with a high dose of lithium (Experiment 1 with a distinctive odor and Experiment 3 without a distinctive odor), a low dose of lithium (Experiment 2) or provocative vestibular stimulation (Experiment 2). These results suggest that the conditioned gaping reaction in rats is selectively elicited by nausea-paired contextual stimuli, as well as flavors. This rat model of anticipatory nausea may serve as a valuable preclinical tool to evaluate the effectiveness of anti-nausea treatments and the side effect of nausea produced by newly developed pharmaceutical compounds intended for other clinical treatments.