Ma Yuan-Ye, Tian Bao P, Wilson Fraser A W
Department of Psychology and ARL Division of Neural Systems, Memory and Aging, Psychology Building 68, 1503 East University Boulevard, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
Neuroreport. 2003 Sep 15;14(13):1737-41. doi: 10.1097/00001756-200309150-00016.
Monkeys with lesions of areas 9 and 46 performed three variants of the spatial delayed response (SDR) task. There were no impairments in allocentric spatial memory in which geometrical relationships between environmental cues were used to identify spatial location; thus, memory of a 3D environmental map is intact. In contrast, there were severe impairments in egocentric spatial memory guided by visual or tactile cues that monkeys can relate to their viewing perspective during testing. These results strongly suggest that dorsolateral prefrontal cortex selectively mediates spatial memory tasks that are solved by referencing the location of targets to the body's orientation.
