MEMORY FOR TEMPORAL-ORDER OF NEW AND FAMILIAR SPATIAL LOCATION SEQUENCES - ROLE OF THE MEDIAL PREFRONTAL CORTEX

Rats with medial prefrontal cortex or sham control lesions were tested on an eight-arm radial maze task to examine memory for the temporal o rder of a variable and a constant sequence of spatial locations as a f unction of temporal distance. During the study phase of each trial, ra ts were allowed to visit each of eight arms once in an order that was randomly selected or fixed for that trial. The test phase required the rats to choose which of two arms occurred earlier in the sequence of arms visited during the study phase. The arms selected as test arms va ried according to temporal distance (0, 2, 4, or 6) or the number of a rms that occurred between the two test arms in the study phase. For th e variable sequences based on new information, control rats showed an increasing temporal distance function, Relative to control rats, media l prefrontal cortex-lesioned rats displayed a temporal order memory de ficit across all distances, For the constant sequence based on familia r information, control rats performed well across all distances, Relat ive to controls, the medial prefrontal cortex-lesioned rats displayed a performance deficit. The results support the idea that the medial pr efrontal cortex contributes to mnemonic operations associated with tem poral order for new and familiar spatial location information.