Medial Frontal Cortex Mediates Perceptual Attentional Set Shifting in the Rat

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Fig. 1.
A series of coronal sections (adapted from Paxinos and Watson, 1997) at 3.7, 2.7, and 1.0 mm anterior to bregma. The extent of the area of damage common to all lesioned rats is shown inblack, whereas the area of damage common to 50% of rats is shown shaded. The maximum extent of any damage is shown as a dotted line.
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Fig. 2.
Bar graph showing number of trials to a criterion (six consecutive correct trials) for each discrimination. ID shifts were learned more rapidly than ED shifts. The lesions resulted in a selective impairment in the ED shift; *p < 0.05 compared with control.

Table 1.

Order of discriminations, which was the same for all rats

Examples of combinations into stimulus pairs are shown for a rat shifting from odor to digging medium. On every trial, the pair of stimuli differed on both the relevant and irrelevant dimensions. The correct exemplar is shown in bold, paired with either exemplar from the irrelevant dimension. The combination of exemplars into positive (+) and negative (−) stimuli and their left–right position of presentation in the cage was a pseudorandom series determined in advance.

Table 2.

Exemplars used

The exemplars within a dimension were presented in pairs and varied such that no two animals within a group received the same discriminations, but the shifts performed by each lesioned rat were matched by those of a control rat.