Odor tracking in rats with orbital frontal lesions.
Rats track self-, conspecific, and artificial odors to locate food. The orbital frontal cortex has been implicated in olfactory behavior, but whether it plays a role in a species-typical behavior, such as odor-guided navigation, has not been studied. Rats were trained to track 1 of 3 different odors deposited on a string. After rats were reliably tracking a scented string, they received a series of 2- and 3-odor discrimination tests. Next, all the rats received bilateral aspiration lesions of the orbital frontal cortex and experienced the same sequence of tasks. Rats learned to track and discriminate between different odors reliably. These results suggest that other areas of the brain mediate odor-guided navigation following damage to the orbital frontal cortex.
Wallace
Douglas G
DG
Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alberta T1K 3M4, Canada. douglas.wallace@uleth.ca
Kolb
Bryan
B
Whishaw
Ian Q
IQ
D000818:Animals; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D009812:Odorants; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D012903:Smell / Q000502:physiology*