Premium
Conditional associative learning and the hippocampal system
Author(s) -
Sziklas V.,
Lebel S.,
Petrides M.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
hippocampus
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.767
H-Index - 155
eISSN - 1098-1063
pISSN - 1050-9631
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1098-1063(1998)8:2<131::aid-hipo5>3.0.co;2-o
Subject(s) - fornix , hippocampus , hippocampal formation , neuroscience , psychology , task (project management) , associative learning , spatial memory , spatial learning , associative property , working memory , cognition , mathematics , management , pure mathematics , economics
Rats with lesions of the fornix, the dorsal hippocampus, or a control operation were trained on a spatial‐visual conditional associative learning task in which they had to learn to associate particular locations with specific visual stimuli. Animals with damage of the fornix were able to learn the task at a rate comparable to that of the control animals, but the performance of the hippocampal rats was significantly impaired in comparison with that of both the control and the fornix groups. In a second experiment, lesions to the fornix or the dorsal hippocampus significantly impaired performance on a spatial working memory task, the eight‐arm radial maze. These findings suggest that the interaction between the hippocampus and subcortical structures via the fornix may be critical only for certain types of spatial learning and memory. Hippocampus 1998;8:131–137. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.