Browning Philip G F, Gaffan David
Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University,
Behav Neurosci. 2008 Apr;122(2):477-82. doi: 10.1037/0735-7044.122.2.477.
Three previous experiments have shown that a disconnection of frontal cortex from inferior temporal cortex in monkeys impairs a variety of visual learning tasks but leaves concurrent object discrimination learning intact. In the present experiment, three monkeys were trained on an object-in-place task where concurrent object discrimination learning took place within unique background scenes. After surgery to transect the uncinate fascicle, the monosynaptic route between prefrontal cortex and inferior temporal cortex, all three monkeys showed an impairment relative to their preoperative performance. Combined with previously reported impairments after uncinate fascicle transection, the interaction between frontal cortex and inferotemporal cortex is likely to be important in discrimination learning in background scenes because learning depends on associating the visual elements of a scene together with the appropriate choice object. This result adds to recent evidence showing that tasks such as object-in-place learning and conditional learning are impaired after disconnection of frontal cortex from inferior temporal cortex because those tasks require the representation of temporally extended events.
此前的三项实验表明，猴子额叶皮质与颞下皮质之间的联系被切断会损害多种视觉学习任务，但同时进行的物体辨别学习却不受影响。在本实验中，三只猴子接受了一项物体定位任务的训练，在独特的背景场景中同时进行物体辨别学习。在切断钩状束（前额叶皮质与颞下皮质之间的单突触路径）的手术后，所有三只猴子相对于术前表现均出现了损伤。结合之前报道的钩状束切断后的损伤情况，额叶皮质与颞下皮质之间的相互作用在背景场景中的辨别学习中可能很重要，因为学习依赖于将场景的视觉元素与合适的选择物体联系起来。这一结果进一步证明了最近的证据，即额叶皮质与颞下皮质断开连接后，物体定位学习和条件学习等任务会受到损害，因为这些任务需要对时间上连续的事件进行表征。
