Puzzle-box learning impairments in young rats with lesions to the “general learning system”

Abstract

Young rats with focal lesions to the general learning system (parietal cortex, dorsal caudatoputamen, globus pallidus, ventrolateral thalamus, substantia nigra, ventral tegmental area, superior colliculus, median raphe, or pontine reticular formation) have previously been reported to be deficient in learning a wide variety of laboratory tasks. The purpose of the current study was to determine whether weanling rats with similarly placed lesions (or frontal cortical or dorsal hippocampal lesions) would subsequently manifest a learning impairment on a series of puzzle-box problems. All groups with lesions to either the subcortical components of the general learning system (GLS) or the frontal (motor) cortex were significantly impaired in overall puzzle-box learning, while the groups with parietal or hippocampal lesions were not. These data suggest that the parietal cortex should be excluded from the GLS of the rat brain. © 1989, Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.