title: The effects of fornix section on win-stay/lose-shift and win-shift/lose-stay performance in the rat.
abstract: Two groups of rats were trained in 2-lever operant tasks that required them to follow either a Win-shift/Lose-stay rule, or else a Win-stay/Lose-shift rule. The rats in each testing condition attained a similar level of performance. Once the tasks had been learnt, half of the rats in each testing condition were given fornix lesions. These lesions produced a clear performance impairment at all inter-response retention intervals tested in those rats trained on the Win-shift/Lose-stay task, but impaired performance in rats trained on the Win-stay/Lose-shift condition only when the inter-response interval reached 10 s. The implications of these results for the working memory theory and for the temporal discontiguity theory are discussed.
authors.affiliation: University of Oxford, Department of Experimental Psychology, U.K.
authors.forename: J N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Rawlins
authors.forename: T J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Maxwell
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Sinden
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D003216:Conditioning, Operant / Q000502:physiology*; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D009042:Motivation / Q000502:physiology; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains; D012153:Retention, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*