Crossed unilateral lesions of medial forebrain bundle and either inferior temporal or frontal cortex impair object recognition memory in Rhesus monkeys
A. Easton et al., Crossed unilateral lesions of medial forebrain bundle and either inferior temporal or frontal cortex impair object recognition memory in Rhesus monkeys, BEH BRA RES, 121(1-2), 2001, pp. 1-10
In monkeys, section of the fornix, amygdala and anterior temporal stem resu
lts in a severe anterograde amnesia. Immunolesions of the cholinergic cells
of the basal forebrain suggest that this amnesia is a result of isolating
the inferior temporal cortex and medial temporal lobe from their cholinergi
c basal forebrain afferents. In this experiment. six monkeys were trained i
n a delayed match-to-sample task and then received a section of the medial
forebrain bundle in one hemisphere and an ablation of either the frontal or
inferior temporal cortex in the opposite hemisphere. All the animals were
severely impaired in the performance of this task following this surgery, a
nd the severity of the impairment was independent of the cortical area from
which the medial forebrain bundle was disconnected. These results support
a model of fronto-temporal interaction via the basal forebrain in new learn
ing, in which midbrain sites related to reward modulate the cholinergic bas
al forebrain activity. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.