Lesion of posterior parietal cortex in rats does not disrupt place avoidance based on either distal or proximal orienting cues.
A current topic in neurobiology is the study of the role of various brain structures in processing of spatial information. The present study was aimed at elucidating the role of the rat posterior parietal cortex in performing a place avoidance task. Two variants of the task were used: an arena frame task, in which animals were trained to avoid a sector defined by local cues bound to the surface of a rotating arena, and the room frame task, in which the shock sector was defined with respect to distal room landmarks. The results showed that both control and lesioned rats were able to efficiently solve both tasks, while locomotion was not altered. These results suggest that the posterior parietal cortex is not crucial for the processing of either proximal or distal cues in place avoidance.
Svoboda
Jan
J
Institute of Physiology v.v.i., Academy of Sciences, Videnska 1083, 14220 Prague, Czech Republic.
Telensky
Petr
P
Blahna
Karel
K
Zach
Petr
P
Bures
Jan
J
Stuchlik
Ales
A
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D001362:Avoidance Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D003463:Cues; D008124:Locomotion / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000293:injuries* / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013037:Spatial Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors