RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Neurotoxic Lesions of the Dorsomedial Thalamus Impair the Acquisition But Not the Performance of Delayed Matching to Place by Rats: a Deficit in Shifting Response Rules
JF The Journal of Neuroscience
JO J. Neurosci.
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP 10045
OP 10052
DO 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.18-23-10045.1998
VO 18
IS 23
A1 Hunt, Peter R.
A1 Aggleton, John P.
YR 1998
UL http://www.jneurosci.org/content/18/23/10045.abstract
AB This study examined the acquisition of a T-maze matching to place task by rats with neurotoxic lesions of the thalamic nucleus medialis dorsalis. This test of spatial working memory also entails learning a task rule that is contrary to the animals’ innate preference. The rats next performed the same matching task over different retention delays. Finally, they were trained on a reversal of the task rule, i.e., to nonmatch to place. Although the lesions produced a clear acquisition impairment on the matching task, there was no evidence of a loss of working memory. A series of control tasks found no appreciable effect on a conditioned cue preference task or on open field activity. The pattern of results shows that medialis dorsalis lesions lead to a selective increase in perseverative behavior that can retard task acquisition. This perseverative deficit closely resembles that observed after prefrontal damage in rats, strongly indicating dysfunction in a common system.