Elsevier

Behavioural Brain Research

Volume 23, Issue 2, February 1987, Pages 127-145
Behavioural Brain Research

Research paper
Behavioural and anatomical studies of the posterior parietal cortex in the rat

https://doi.org/10.1016/0166-4328(87)90050-7Get rights and content

Abstract

Primates have an area of posterior cortex characterized by multimodal sensory projections to and from the frontal association cortex and a clear behavioural syndrome resulting from lesions to this zone. The posterior association cortex of the rat was examined in two series of experiments, one anatomical and one behavioural, to see if an analogous region could be found. The anatomical connections of Krieg's area 7 in the rat were examined by placing the retrograde tracer, True blue, into the frontal or posterior cortex, and the behaviour of rats with this cortex removed was studied on a variety of tasks. This area appears to be a multimodal sensory association region. It receives projections from striate (area 17), extrastriate (areas 18a and 18b), and somatosensory cortex (area 3). It is also reciprocally connected with the posterior cingulate cortex and two frontal association zones in the medial frontal cortex, namely the anterior cingulate cortex and the frontal eye fields. Lesions produced deficits on tasks of tactile discrimination, and walking a narrow beam, two tasks requiring animals to navigate accurately to a point in space, and a task requiring the association of two spatially discontiguous cues. The animals were not impaired at navigating to a cue or in opening puzzle latches. Overall, the results show that the rat has a sensory association zone that may be analogous to the posterior parietal cortex of primates.

References (49)

  • R. Latto

    The effects of bilateral frontal eye-field, posterior parietal or superior collicular lesions on visual search in the rhesus monkey

    Brain Research

    (1978)
  • W.F. McDaniel et al.

    Thalamocortical projections to the temporal and parietal association cortices in the rat

    Neurosci. Lett.

    (1978)
  • A.D. Milner et al.

    Visuospatial performance following posterior parietal and lateral frontal lesions in stumptail macaques

    Cortex

    (1977)
  • R.G.M. Morris

    Spatial localization does not require the presence of local cues

    Learn. Motiv.

    (1981)
  • D.N. Pandya et al.

    Proposed neural circuitry for spatial memory in the primate brain

    Neuropsychologia

    (1984)
  • M. Petrides et al.

    Restricted posterior parietal lesions in the rhesus monkey and performance on visuospatial tasks

    Brain Research

    (1979)
  • R.L. Reep et al.

    Afferent connections of medial precentral cortex in the rat

    Neurosci. Lett.

    (1984)
  • J. Semmes et al.

    Effects of cortical lesions on somatosensory tasks

    J. Invest. Dermatol.

    (1977)
  • M.G. Sugishita et al.

    Disturbance of cage finding in the monkey

    Cortex

    (1978)
  • R.J. Sutherland et al.

    A behavioural analysis of spatial localization following electrolytic, kainate- or colchicine-induced damage to the hippocampal formation in the rat

    Behav. Brain Res.

    (1983)
  • N.M. Bugbee et al.

    Columnar organization of corticocortical projections in squirrel and rhesus monkeys: similarity of column width in species differing in cortical volume

    J. Comp. Neurol.

    (1983)
  • D. Denny-Brown et al.

    The parietal lobes and behavior

    Res. Publ. Assoc. Res. Nerv. Ment. Dis.

    (1958)
  • G. Ettlinger et al.

    Changes in tactile discrimination and in visual searching after successive and simultaneous bilateral posterior parietal ablations in the monkey

    J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatry

    (1962)
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text