Hippocampal lesions and path integration

Current Opinion in Neurobiology

Volumn 7, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 228-234

  Whishaw, Ian Q ^a   McKenna, John E ^a   Maaswinkel, Hans ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ASSOCIATION; BEHAVIOR; HIPPOCAMPUS; LEARNING; NONHUMAN; PRIORITY JOURNAL; PROBLEM SOLVING; REVIEW;

EID: 0030979453     PISSN: 09594388     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/S0959-4388(97)80011-6     Document Type: Article

References (64)

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9. of special interest Jarrard LE. What does the hippocampus really do? Behav Brain Res. 71:1995;1-10 A review of a series of papers that pioneered the use of selective lesions to portions of the hippocampal formation. The experimental portion of the paper shows that rats with selective hippocampal lesions can learn nonspatial information but are impaired in learning spatial information. The theme of the research is that subsystems within the hippocampal formation may have specific functions.
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62. of special interest Ridley RM, Timothy CJ, MacLean CJ, Baker HF. Conditional learning and memory impairments following neurotoxic lesion of the CA1 field of the hippocampus. Neuroscience. 67:1995;263-275 In this study, marmosets were tested in a Wisconsin general test apparatus (WGTA) in which two identical stimuli were placed before them and they had to learn to obtain food reward by reaching to the left or to the right, depending upon the stimuli. This task is very difficult for normal marmosets to acquire and hippocampal lesions produce a profound impairment. Animals that have acquired the response also display retrograde amnesia following CA1 lesions. These results are interesting with respect to the present review because the animals must choose a motor response (reach to the left or to the right) as well as make a visual discrimination in response to the stimuli. The task described below [63] requires only that rats make a discrimination and they display no learning or retention impairment.
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64. of outstanding interest McDonald RJ, White N. Hippocampal and nonhippocampal conributions to place learning in rats. Behav Neurosci. 109:1995;579-593 The study searches for underlying principles of maze learning as they relate to brain lesions placed in different locations. The study concludes that the hippocampal system is necessary for ambiguous spatial discriminations and can perform its function only if animals are allowed to move through the environment.