Landmark navigation in gerbils: The role of the posterior parietal cortex

Abstract

Gerbils were trained to find targets by using visible intramaze landmarks. Normal gerbils were able to find targets by using unstable landmarks, either with or without an externally defined directional vector. Following lesions of the posterior parietal cortex, the gerbils had no clear deficit in navigating with intramaze landmarks but were significantly impaired in a variant of the task that required that they use only extramaze landmarks. These findings confirm and extend recent evidence regarding rodents' abilities to navigate by using landmarks, and they suggest that the posterior parietal cortex is preferentially involved in navigating to places that are defined by arrays of distal landmarks.