Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, CA 92161, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Mar 19;110(12):4732-7. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1300869110. Epub 2013 Feb 12.
The hippocampus and other medial temporal lobe structures have been linked to both memory and spatial cognition, but it has been unclear how these ideas are connected. We carried out parallel studies of path integration in patients with medial temporal lobe lesions and rats with hippocampal lesions. Subjects entered a circular arena without vision, searched for a target, and then attempted to return to the start location. Patients performed accurately, and as well as controls, so long as the outward path was relatively direct and the target was found within 20 s. In sharp contrast, rats with hippocampal lesions were impaired, even when the outward path was shorter than 1 m, involved no turns, and the target was found within 3 s. We suggest that patients succeeded because performance could be supported by working memory and that patients and rats differ after hippocampal lesions in their ability to construct a coherent working memory of spatial environments.
海马体和其他内侧颞叶结构与记忆和空间认知都有关联,但这些概念之间的联系尚不清楚。我们对内侧颞叶损伤患者和海马损伤大鼠的路径整合进行了平行研究。实验中,被试在没有视觉的情况下进入一个圆形竞技场,寻找目标,然后尝试返回起始位置。只要向外的路径相对直接,并且在 20 秒内找到目标,患者的表现就像对照组一样准确。相比之下,即使向外的路径短于 1 米,没有转弯,并且在 3 秒内找到了目标,海马损伤的大鼠也会受到影响。我们认为,患者之所以能够成功,是因为他们的表现可以得到工作记忆的支持,并且在海马损伤后,患者和大鼠在构建连贯的空间环境工作记忆的能力上存在差异。