Social learning of food preferences in rodents: rapid appetitive learning.

A procedure is described for quantitating the transfer of information about inducing increased intake of distinctively-flavored foods or fluids among common laboratory rodents. The method provides a simple, efficient, non-invasive way to produce robust, long-lasting changes in appetitive behaviors of laboratory rodents that can be used in studies of the neuroanatomical, neurochemical or genetic substrates of learning and memory.