Abstract
The role of the hippocampus in non-spatial memory has been issue of some controversy. To investigate the nature of dorsal hippocampus engagement in spatial and non-spatial memory we performed discrete excitotoxic lesions of this region before mice (C57/BL6) were trained in one of two tasks that required the animals to retrieve a hidden food reward. In the visuospatial task animals had to remember a particular spatial location, independent of odor cues. In contrast, in a non-spatial olfactory task animals had to remember a particular odor, independent of spatial location. The mice were trained in one of these tasks over a period of three days. We found that lesions restricted to the dorsal hippocampus affected performance only in the spatial task. In contrast, lesions that also encompassed a larger portion of the ventral hippocampus caused a moderate deficit in the olfactory task. These results are consistent with the role of the dorsal hippocampus in long-term spatial episodic memory, and support the involvement of larger portions of the hippocampus on the encoding of non-spatial olfactory representations.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 581-588 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Neurobiology of learning and memory |
Volume | 93 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - May 2010 |
Keywords
- Animals
- Cues
- Executive Function
- Goals
- Hippocampus
- Male
- Mental Recall
- Mice
- Mice, Inbred C57BL
- N-Methylaspartate
- Neuropsychological Tests
- Neurotoxins
- Olfactory Perception
- Reward
- Space Perception
- Visual Perception