WWW.JNEUROSCI.ORG
-
The Journal of Neuroscience
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     
-


HOME  |   SEARCH  |   ARCHIVE  |   SUBSCRIBE  |   CONTACT  |   HELP
The Journal of Neuroscience, November 21, 2007, 27(47):12868-12873; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3536-07.2007

This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Submit an eLetter
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when eLetters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Web of Science (3)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Wilson, C. R. E.
Right arrow Articles by Gaffan, D.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Wilson, C. R. E.
Right arrow Articles by Gaffan, D.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Fornix Transection Impairs Learning of Randomly Changing Object Discriminations

Charles R. E. Wilson, David P. Charles, {dagger} Mark J. Buckley, and David Gaffan

Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, Oxford OX1 3UD, United Kingdom

Correspondence should be addressed to Charles R. E. Wilson, Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3UD, UK. Email: charles.wilson{at}psy.ox.ac.uk

The hippocampus has a well established role in spatial memory, but increasing evidence points to a role in nonspatial aspects of memory. To investigate such a role, six macaque monkeys received a bilateral transection of the fornix to disconnect subcortical inputs and outputs of the hippocampus. An additional six macaque monkeys constituted an unoperated control group. To test the involvement of the hippocampus in nonspatial aspects of memory, both groups were trained postoperatively on four concurrent visual object discrimination problems, each problem having one rewarded object and one unrewarded. After acquisition to criterion of these discriminations, the monkeys learned five subsequent stages of discriminations using the same objects. In each of these stages, both the pairings of objects one with another, and the reward assignments for the objects, were randomly reassigned. In the initial acquisition stage, control and fornix animals were equally proficient in learning the discriminations. In the five reassigned stages, however, monkeys with fornix transection made on average three times as many errors as the controls in learning the discriminations. This impairment was noted even in trials where the reward assignments from the previous stage were maintained in the new stage. These findings are consistent with other recent evidence for a role beyond the spatial domain for the fornix in monkeys.

Key words: fornix; monkey; hippocampus; memory; macaque; spatial

Received Aug. 3, 2007; revised Oct. 9, 2007; accepted Oct. 10, 2007.

Correspondence should be addressed to Charles R. E. Wilson, Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3UD, UK. Email: charles.wilson{at}psy.ox.ac.uk






 -
-

Home  |   Search  |   Archive  |   Subscribe  |   Contact  |   Help
-
Copyright 2009 by Society for Neuroscience ONLINE ISSN: 1529-2401
-