Lesion of the ventral and intermediate hippocampus abolishes anticipatory activity in the medial prefrontal cortex of the rat

The ventral hippocampal muscarinic cholinergic system plays a key role in sexual dimorphisms of spatial working memory in rats

“…It is interesting, however, that infusions into the MfC had effects on working memory performance, but not reference memory, and this was true for both SCOP and MEC treatments. The MfC contributes greatly to memory processes, and the MfC-VH circuit is particularly crucial to spatial working memory (Burton et al, 2009; Kyd and Bilkey, 2003). Furthermore, cholinergic activity is critical to MfC function.…”

Situationally appropriate behavior: translating situations into appetitive behavior modes

“…The dorsal hippocampus indirectly modulates activity in the medial prefrontal cortex via the intermediate hippocampus and ventral subiculum. Neurons in the prelimbic and infralimbic regions of the medial prefrontal cortex show similar anticipatory activity when rats wait for the release of a food pellet in a goal zone to which they have learned to navigate (Burton et al, 2009). Anticipatory neuronal activity in the medial prefrontal cortex is dependent on anticipatory activity in the hippocampus, given that bilateral lesions of the ventral and intermediate hippocampus abolished anticipatory activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (Burton et al, 2009).…”

“…Neurons in the prelimbic and infralimbic regions of the medial prefrontal cortex show similar anticipatory activity when rats wait for the release of a food pellet in a goal zone to which they have learned to navigate (Burton et al, 2009). Anticipatory neuronal activity in the medial prefrontal cortex is dependent on anticipatory activity in the hippocampus, given that bilateral lesions of the ventral and intermediate hippocampus abolished anticipatory activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (Burton et al, 2009). These data further support the notion that there is a functional axis from the dorsal and ventral hippocampus to the medial prefrontal cortex that makes a critical contribution to the organization of complex goaldirected behavior.…”

“…Thus, the goal, that is the contextualized image of a reward-related object, may be in a position to precipitate and invigorate an epoch of instrumental behavior, similarly to the effect of incentive-motivational contextual cue that is integral to the situation presently occupied by the animal. Both, expectation of a future reward (activation of an outcome or goal representation) and being in a rewardrelated location (or being exposed to a reward-predictive context) are associated with medial prefrontal activity (prelimbic cortex in rodents and rostral anterior cingulate in humans) (Balleine and Dickinson, 1998;Corbit and Balleine, 2003;Hok et al, 2005;de Wit et al, 2006;Burton et al, 2009;Krieghoff et al, 2009).…”

Embracing complexity: using the attribute model to elucidate the role for distributed neural networks underlying spatial memory processes

“…Importantly, it is becoming clear that the infralimbic/prelimbic cortices influence cellular firing in the hip pocampus by biasing the firing pat terns to goal locations or other task relevant factors other than place per se 100 . These findings are interpreted as the infralimbic/prelimbic cortices being critical for the computation of planned trajectories and modifi cation of behavioural output along those preplanned goals [101][102][103][104][105] .…”