[The effect of striatectomy on retraining rats to an avoidance habit in a U-shaped maze].

The capacity of rats to reversal learning changing of the direction of the avoidance response was determined in the Y-shaped maze. Four training sessions--each time in a new direction (to the right or to the left) for running were conducted in the course of one experiment. The results obtained in 4 groups of animals were compared: intact, with bi- and unilateral striatectomy and with bilateral destruction of the parietal cortex. The majority of the intact rats preferred running in the right direction. The character of the preference changed after striectomy: the rats ran more regularly in the direction at the side of which the striatum was injured more. Bilateral striatectomy also led to increase in the number of errors, to the increase in the latency and disturbance of a passive component of the avoidance response.