The Journal of Neuroscience, December 15, 2002, 22(24):10976-10984
Sensitivity to Instrumental Contingency Degradation Is Mediated
by the Entorhinal Cortex and Its Efferents via the Dorsal
Hippocampus
Laura H.
Corbit,
Sean B.
Ostlund, and
Bernard W.
Balleine
Department of Psychology University of California, Los Angeles, Los
Angeles, California 90095
Previous studies have shown that electrolytic lesions of the dorsal
hippocampus render the instrumental performance of rats insensitive to
selective degradation of the action-outcome contingency (Corbit and
Balleine, 2000). In the present experiments, we sought to replicate
this finding and to examine the effects of excitotoxic lesions. In the
first three experiments, rats with either electrolytic or NMDA lesions
of the dorsal hippocampus and sham-lesioned controls were trained to
press two levers, each of which delivered a unique food outcome, before
their sensitivity to outcome devaluation and degradation of the
instrumental contingency was assessed. Although we were able to
replicate our original finding that electrolytic lesions of the dorsal
hippocampus render rats insensitive to selective degradation of the
instrumental contingency, NMDA lesions of the dorsal hippocampus had no
effect. Neither lesion had any detectable effect on sensitivity to
outcome devaluation. In experiment 4, we assessed the
possibility that the effect of the electrolytic lesion resulted from
damage to fibers originating in the retrohippocampal region (including
both entorhinal cortex and subiculum) by examining the impact of
bilateral NMDA-induced lesions of the retrohippocampus on the same
tasks. Importantly, this lesion produced a deficit similar to that
observed after electrolytic hippocampal lesions. The final experiment
used a disconnection procedure to assess more directly whether damage
to efferents from the retrohippocampal region, rather than the dorsal
hippocampus itself, can account for the observed deficit. The data from
these tests suggest that the deficits observed previously after
electrolytic hippocampal lesions were the result of damage to
entorhinal efferents.
Key words:
entorhinal cortex; dorsal hippocampus; subiculum; instrumental conditioning; outcome devaluation; contingency
degradation; reward; context
Copyright © 2002 Society for Neuroscience 0270-6474/02/222410976-09$05.00/0