Effects of prefrontal cortex lesions on short-term memory and attentional function assessed with a 3-lever operant apparatus in rats

• Published in: Japanese Journal of Pharmacology 1995, Vol.67 (suppl.2), p.293-293
• Main Authors: Nobuhito Yukuhiro, Tsuneyuki Yamamoto, Akira Miyamoto, Shigenori Watanabe
• Format: Article
• Language: Japanese
• ISSN: 0021-5198

In the present study, we investigated the involvement of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) on delayed matching-to-sample (DMTS) performance in a 3-lever operant task and on the attention in a 3-choice serial reaction time (light tracking) task. In the DMTS task, performed 5 days after the PFC lesion, PFC lesioned rats showed a marked and long-lasting decrease in the number of reinforcements in a test trial (choice trial), which remained during the subsequent 20 sessions. h the training trial (sample trial), PFC lesioned rats also showed a significant decrease in the number of reinforcements. However, the level of reinforcements returned to the sham level from the 7th session. On the other hand, PFC lesions produced a signficant decrease in the response rate over 20 sessions in both training and test trials. In the light tracking task, PFC lesioned rats showed significant lengthening of latency to respond to the light stimulus. In repeated sessions, this lengthening gradually returned to the level of sham lesioned rats. Furthermore, PFC lesions significantly reduced the choice accuracy, and it hardly returned to the level of sham lesioned rats in the subsequent sessions. These findings suggest that PFC plays a crucial role in short-term memory and attentional function.