Performance of rats on the Maier Three-Table Task following septal lesions occurring 24 hours after birth.

Stahl, Jeanne M.; Ellen, Paul

doi:10.1037/h0077639

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Indeed, on the basis of the data analyzed with the negative binomial distribution, a rat with a fimbria-fornix lesion can be most accurately described as choosing randomly between the two alternatives in the working memory test. This apparently permanent impairment in a working memory procedure following fimbria-fornix lesions is consistent with the results of many other experiments in which a similar procedure was used Jarrard, 1978;Johnson, Olton, Gage, & Jenko, 1977;Olton & Feustle, 1981;Olton & Papas, 1979;Olton & Werz, 1978;Sinnamon, Freniere, & Kootz, 1978;Stahl & Ellen, 1979;Thomas, 1978;Walker & Olton, 1979b). It indicates that the failure to find an impair- ment following fimbria-fornix lesions in Experiment 1 did not result from the type of lesion, the testing apparatus, or the testing environment, but rather from the type of discrimination, one that did not require working memory.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Fimbria-Fornix lesions impair spatial working memory but not cognitive mapping.

Walker

Olton²

1984

Behavioral Neuroscience

103

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Three experiments were designed to evaluate the relative merits of two theories of hippocampal function, the cognitive mapping theory and the working memory theory. Rats were tested in a series of maze tasks that varied in memory requirements. In the experiments that required cognitive mapping but not working memory (Experiments 1 and 3), rats with fimbria-fornix lesions reached stable levels of performance that were as accurate as those of control rats, and they also performed accurately during transfer tests, results demonstrating that they used a cognitive mapping strategy to solve the discrimination. In the experiment that required working memory (Experiment 2), rats with fimbria-fornix lesions performed at chance levels during all of postoperative testing, and they distributed their choices randomly between the correct and the incorrect goals. These results are seen as generally refuting the predictions made by the cognitive mapping theory and supporting the predictions made by the working memory theory. Additional analyses (Experiment 3) examined the nature of a transitory impairment exhibited by rats with fimbria-fornix lesions in two tasks that did not require working memory. Postoperatively, the performance of the rats with lesions was initially impaired but recovered to normal levels with a time course similar to that seen during preoperative acquisition. These results are seen as requiring an extension of the working memory theory of hippocampal function, and discussion is focused on the possibility of a temporary retrograde amnesia following fimbria-fornix lesions and the distinctions between different types of memory abilities.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Fimbria-Fornix lesions impair spatial working memory but not cognitive mapping.

Walker

Olton²

1984

Behavioral Neuroscience

103

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“…Turning now to the results of Experiment 2, we found that when the distinctive intramaze stimuli merely marked the spatial location of the three tables and their associated runways rather than consistently marking the food table, septal animals showed the typical impairment seen on this task when there are no distinctive intramaze stimuli (Herrmann et al , 1978;Herrmann et al, 1980;Stahl & Ellen 1973, 1979. Similar findings were obtained by Beatty and Carbone (1980) using a radial-arm maze.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 65%

“…When the stimulus inserts merely identified the spatiallocation of each table and its corresponding runway, then septals still were impaired relative to normals. More importantly, the fact that normals could perform successfully in Experiment 2 only when they had received a prior exploratory experience indicated that highlighting the spatial location of each table and its runway with a distinctive intramaze stimulus marker does not alter the qualitative character of the three-table task as one requiring spatial integration.A number of neurobehavioral studies (Ellen & Weston, 1983;Herrmann, Black, Anchel, & Ellen, 1978;Herrmann, Black, Doherty, & Ellen, 1980;Rabe & Haddad, 1969;Stahl & Ellen, 1973, 1979 have shown that damage to the septal-hippocampal complex and its interconnections produces profound and long-lasting deficits in performance on the Maier three-table task (Maier, 1932). It will be recalled that on this task animals are required to integrate information concerning the spatial relations existing among the three tables with information concerning the daily locus of food.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A number of neurobehavioral studies (Ellen & Weston, 1983;Herrmann, Black, Anchel, & Ellen, 1978;Herrmann, Black, Doherty, & Ellen, 1980;Rabe & Haddad, 1969;Stahl & Ellen, 1973, 1979 have shown that damage to the septal-hippocampal complex and its interconnections produces profound and long-lasting deficits in performance on the Maier three-table task (Maier, 1932). It will be recalled that on this task animals are required to integrate information concerning the spatial relations existing among the three tables with information concerning the daily locus of food.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The use of intramaze stimuli in the attenuation of the problem-solving deficit of septal animals

Ellen

Wages

1984

Psychobiology

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An attempt was made to ameliorate the deficit in performance shown by septal rats on the Maier three-table task by using either a distinctive visual stimulus insert as a discriminative cue to the route to the daily locus of the food table (Experiment 1) or distinctive visual inserts merely to mark the spatiallocation of each table and the runway leading to that table from the choice point (Experiment 2). When a single stimulus insert consistently identified the food table and the runway to it, regardless of its location in the room, then septals did not differ from shams, and both septals and shams performed better than comparable animals not given the exploratory experience. When the stimulus inserts merely identified the spatiallocation of each table and its corresponding runway, then septals still were impaired relative to normals. More importantly, the fact that normals could perform successfully in Experiment 2 only when they had received a prior exploratory experience indicated that highlighting the spatial location of each table and its runway with a distinctive intramaze stimulus marker does not alter the qualitative character of the three-table task as one requiring spatial integration.A number of neurobehavioral studies (Ellen & Weston, 1983;Herrmann, Black, Anchel, & Ellen, 1978;Herrmann, Black, Doherty, & Ellen, 1980;Rabe & Haddad, 1969;Stahl & Ellen, 1973, 1979 have shown that damage to the septal-hippocampal complex and its interconnections produces profound and long-lasting deficits in performance on the Maier three-table task (Maier, 1932). It will be recalled that on this task animals are required to integrate information concerning the spatial relations existing among the three tables with information concerning the daily locus of food. Each day, the start and food tables are changed so that the animals never learn a particular route to the food or a particular location ofthe food.Despite the marked successes that have been achieved with operant tasks in the attenuation of septal-lesioninduced deficits by means of an external cue that indicates when to respond (Braggio & Ellen, 1976;Ellen & Butter, 1969;Kelsey & Grossman, 1971), a comparable improvement in performance has not been achieved when an external cue is used to signal the locus of the food table in the three-table task. Herrmann et al. (1980) have shown that when a cue light was placed on the feeding table during both the feeding experience and the test trial, septal animals were still unable to return directly to the food table on the test trial.It should be noted that, in the three-table task, the use of the cue light to signal the bai ted table isThe contributions of the following people to the various parts of this study are gratefully acknowledged: Martha Blanc, John CuJlom, Cynthia Johnson, Salvador Macias, and Betty Soteres. The authors' mailing address is: Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, University Plaza, Atlanta, GA 30303.133 not comparable to that of the operant task. In the operant chamber, the cue light...

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“…This study addressed the question of whether the failure of septally damaged rats to perform correctly on the daily first trial of the three-table task was related to a failure to explore during the exploratory phase of the task. This issue derived from the fact that septal animals engage in significantly more sector entries during the IS-min exploratory period than do normal or sham-operated animals (Stahl & Ellen, 1973, 1979 Figure 2) and the possibility that such an enhancement in sector-entry behavior was merely a lesion-induced increase in general activity rather than an increase in exploratory activity per se. The decline in the rate of sector entries during successive 3-min epochs of the IS-min exploratory phase was considered as evidence of exploratory activity (O'Keefe & Nadel, 1978) rather than general activity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%