title: Object/context specific memory deficits following medial frontal cortex damage in mice.
abstract: Recent evidence suggests that the medial prefrontal cortex (MFC) is important for processing contextual information. Here we evaluate the performance of mice with MFC damage in a discrimination task that requires an association between an object and the context in which it was experienced (the object/context mismatch task), as well as a version of the novel object preference task that does not require knowledge of contextual information to resolve. Adult C57/BL6 mice received aspiration lesions of the MFC or control surgery. Upon recovery, mice were tested in the object/context mismatch and novel object preference tasks. The object/context mismatch task involved exposing mice to two different contexts, each of which housed a unique pair of identical objects. After a brief delay, mice were re-exposed to one of the contexts, this time with one object that was congruent with that context and one that was not. Novel object preference was performed within a single context, housing an identical pair of objects. After the initial exposure and following a brief delay, mice were re-exposed to the context, this time housing a familiar and a novel object. Control mice were able to successfully resolve the object/context mismatch and novel object preference discriminations, investigating the incongruent/novel object within each task significantly greater than chance. Mice with MFC damage experienced deficits in the object/context mismatch task but not the novel object preference task. These findings add to a growing body of evidence that demonstrate a critical role for the MFC in contextual information processing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. scspansw@ucalgary.ca
authors.forename: Simon C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Spanswick
authors.forename: Richard H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Dyck
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology; D048588:Benzoxazines; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000293:injuries* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000378:metabolism / Q000523:psychology*; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D010078:Oxazines / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D048588:Benzoxazines; D010078:Oxazines; C028911:cresyl violet