title: Lesions of the anterior thalamic nuclei and intralaminar thalamic nuclei: place and visual discrimination learning in the water maze.
abstract: Medial thalamic damage produces memory deficits in humans (e.g., Korsakoff's syndrome) and experimental animals. Both the anterior thalamic nuclei (ATN) and rostral intralaminar plus adjacent lateral thalamic nuclei (ILN/LT) have been implicated. Based on the differences in their main connections with other neural structures, we tested the prediction that ATN lesions would selectively impair acquisition of spatial location discrimination, reflecting a hippocampal system deficit, whereas ILN/LT lesions would impair acquisition of visual pattern discrimination, reflecting a striatal system deficit. Half the rats were first trained in a spatial task in a water maze before switching to a visual task in the same maze, while the remainder were tested with the reverse order of tasks. Compared with sham-operated controls, (1) rats with ATN lesions showed impaired place learning, but normal visual discrimination learning, (2) rats with ILN/LT lesions showed no deficit on either task. Rats with ATN lesions were also hyperactive when their home cage was placed in a novel room and remained more active than ILN/LT or SHAM rats for the subsequent 21 h, especially during the nocturnal phase. These findings confirmed the influence of ATN lesions on spatial learning, but failed to support the view that ILN/LT lesions disrupt striatal-dependent memory.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire d'Imagerie et Neurosciences Cognitives, UMR 7237, Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, IFR 37 Neurosciences, GDR CNRS 2905, 12 Rue Goethe, 67000 Strasbourg, France.
authors.forename: Pierre-Henri
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Moreau
authors.forename: Yanina
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tsenkina
authors.forename: Lucas
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lecourtier
authors.forename: Joëlle
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lopez
authors.forename: Brigitte
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Cosquer
authors.forename: Mathieu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wolff
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dalrymple-Alford
authors.forename: Jean-Christophe
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Cassel
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D020643:Anterior Thalamic Nuclei / Q000293:injuries*; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology; D020646:Intralaminar Thalamic Nuclei / Q000293:injuries*; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D009043:Motor Activity; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*