Diaz-Granados J L, Greene P L, Amsel A
Department of Psychology, University of Texas, Austin 78712.
Behav Neurosci. 1992 Dec;106(6):940-6. doi: 10.1037//0735-7044.106.6.940.
Infantile exposure to x-irradiation induced severe hippocampal granule cell hypoplasia in preweanling and young adult rats. Hippocampally damaged pups, tested at 16 days of age, showed deficits in a memory-based discrimination based on single alternations of reward and nonreward when training was conducted at a 60-s intertrial interval (ITI) but not when conducted at a 30-s ITI. This deficit was still present at the 60-s ITI in animals x-irradiated in infancy and tested at 60-65 days of age. These data provide further support for the role of the hippocampus in intermediate-term memory and demonstrate, in a developmental context, the importance of an intact hippocampus in learning that depends on nonspatial memory.
