Dissociating the role of the parietal cortex and dorsal hippocampus for spatial information processing.
Dorsal hippocampus, parietal cortex, and control lesioned rats were tested on both a metric and topological task. The metric task consisted of 2 different objects placed 68 cm apart on a cheese board. After habituation, the objects were moved to a separation of 38 cm on Day 1 and to a separation of 98 cm on Day 2. The topological task consisted of 4 different objects placed in a square orientation. After habituation, the first 2 objects were switched, and after the rats habituated to that change, the back 2 objects were switched. This was repeated on a different day with 4 new objects. The data suggest that the hippocampus is necessary for metric representations, whereas the parietal cortex is necessary for topological representations.
Goodrich-Hunsaker
Naomi J
NJ
Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.
Hunsaker
Michael R
MR
Kesner
Raymond P
RP
D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D005106:Exploratory Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic / Q000502:physiology; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000293:injuries / Q000502:physiology*; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000502:physiology; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000293:injuries / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013037:Spatial Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors