title: Involvement of ventral pallidum in prefrontal cortex-dependent aspects of spatial working memory.
abstract: Ventral pallidum (VP) is an important source of limbic input to medial thalamus. Three studies examined the role of VP in spatial memory tasks impaired by medial thalamic lesions. In the 1st study, rats with VP lesions were impaired performing delayed matching trained with retractable levers (DMRL), a measure sensitive to prefrontal (but not hippocampal) damage. The 2nd study demonstrated dose-dependent DMRL impairment following microinjection of gamma-aminobutyric acidA, glutamate, or mu-opioid agonists in VP. In the 3rd study, VP lesions had no effect on varying choice radial-maze delayed nonmatching, a measure sensitive to hippocampal (but not prefrontal) lesions. These results suggest a common role in spatial memory for VP and other components of prefrontal-ventral striatopallidothalamic circuits distinct from hippocampal function.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA.
authors.forename: Yueping
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Kathleen R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Bailey
authors.forename: Margaret M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Toupin
authors.forename: Robert G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Mair
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005917:Globus Pallidus / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology*; D018698:Glutamic Acid / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000494:pharmacology; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D013028:Space Perception; D013787:Thalamic Nuclei / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology; D005680:gamma-Aminobutyric Acid / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000494:pharmacology
chemical_list: D018698:Glutamic Acid; D005680:gamma-Aminobutyric Acid