The effects of selective lesions within the anterior thalamic nuclei on spatial memory in the rat.
Behav Brain Res
; 81(1-2): 189-98, 1996 Nov.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-8950016
ABSTRACT
Groups of rats received cytotoxic lesions centred in either the anterior thalamic nucleus (AM), the anterior ventral and anterior dorsal thalamic nuclei (AV/AD), or all three nuclei combined (ANT.T). These lesions were made by injecting N-methyl-D-aspartate acid (NMDA). These rats, and a group of surgical controls (SHAM), were trained on a rewarded forced-alternation task in a T-maze. While the selective AM and AV/AD lesions produced an initial acquisition impairment, only the animals with combined lesions (ANT.T) showed a persistent deficit throughout the 16 acquisition sessions. Subsequent testing with a cross-maze confirmed that the SHAM, AV/AD, and AM groups were able to use allocentric cues, while the ANT.T group were impaired. In contrast none of the three anterior groups were impaired on a subsequent egocentric discrimination and reversal task run in the same apparatus. A final test using the eight arm radial-maze, revealed marked deficits in the ANT.T group as well as milder deficits in the AV/AD group. The results from these experiments help to confirm the importance of the anterior thalamic nuclei for allocentric tasks, but suggest that no region is pre-eminently important. The findings also help to account for other studies which have reported that anterior thalamic lesions have seemingly mild effects on tests of spatial memory.
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Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Percepción Espacial
/
Núcleos Talámicos
/
Memoria
Límite:
Animals
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Behav Brain Res
Año:
1996
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Reino Unido