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In classical conditioning, an animal is exposed to a neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus) followed by an appe-titive or aversive stimulus (unconditioned stimulus). With successive repetitions of this association, the animal will respond to the neutral stimulus as if it were the unconditioned stimulus. This phenomenon has been widely explored in different zoological classes, covering animal species ranging from mollusks to humans. In most ca-ses, appetitive and aversive unconditioned stimuli correspond to different sensory pathways. For example, the appetitive stimulus typically used is food and the typical aversive stimulus is electric shock. Thus one type of sti-mulus will excite the receptors related to the sense of taste, while the other type will do so mostly on the tactile and nociceptive pathways. Studies on amphibians, particularly the terrestrial toad, reproduce to a large extent the findings in other animal species, but they have characteristics that make them unique by having electrolyte receptors in their skin that are involved in the regulation of their body's hydrosaline balance. A toad exposed to a slightly hypertonic saline solution (concentration less than 250 mMNaCl) gains weight and exhibits approxi-mation behaviors. Whereas if it takes contact with a highly hypertonic saline solution (concentration higher than 400 mM NaCl), it loses weight and exhibits escape behaviors. Thus, the same stimulus (a saline solution of NaCl), can act as an appetitive or aversive stimulus depending on its concentration. This particularity has been called unidimensionality of motivational stimuli. In the present work we describe the procedures and review the results of associative learning studies in toads, highlighting the use of this experimental model for the study of the possible neural mechanisms involved in the processing of appetitive and aversive environmental signals.References
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