Residual visuomotor behaviour after bilateral removal of the occipital lobe in the rabbit.
After bilateral removal of the occipital lobe rabbits were studied in an enriched environment. At first their behaviour was severely impaired. After eight weeks the animals had learned to avoid obstacles, climb up ramps and jump from tables. It was shown that this recovery was due to the use of remaining visual structures. For this the pressure of an enriched environment was essential. In spite of this recovery the animals were incapable of striated pattern discrimination. Although black-white discrimination was apparently normal, the brightness threshold was found to be increased.
D000818:Animals; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology; D004777:Environment; D008027:Light; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011817:Rabbits; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology