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

Hunt, P. R. and Aggleton, John Patrick ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5573-1308 1998. 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. The Journal of Neuroscience 18 (23) , pp. 10045-10052.

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Abstract

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.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Psychology Schools > Medicine Research Institutes & Centres > Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute (NMHII)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	medial dorsal thalamus; matching to place; response rules; working memory; spatial memory; prefrontal cortex; amnesia
Additional Information:	Pdf uploaded in accordance with publisher's policy at http://www.jneurosci.org/site/misc/ifa_policies.xhtml#copyright (accessed 27/02/2014).
Publisher:	Society for Neuroscience
ISSN:	0270-6474
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	15 May 2023 23:24
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/34933

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