Moss M, Mahut H, Zola-Morgan S
J Neurosci. 1981 Mar;1(3):227-40. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.01-03-00227.1981.
Ablations of anterior inferotemporal cortex in monkeys are known to impair learning when discriminations between members of several pairs of objects are taught concurrently. This deficit has been attributed to a loss of visual mnemonic functions. But ablations of hippocampus have also been shown to impair retention, and this impairment transcends the visual modality. Therefore, in the first of two experiments, we compared the behavioral effects of inferotemporal cortical lesions with those of either hippocampus, entorhinal area, or fornix, using a visual concurrent discrimination task. Monkeys with either hippocampal or entorhinal ablations were impaired, while those with fornix sections were not. However, ablations of hippocampus included inadvertent damage of the inferotemporal cortex. Therefore, in the second experiment, behavioral effects of inferotemporal lesions were compared with those of hippocampus (without additional inferotemporal damage) on the concurrent task in both visual and tactual modalities. In the visual mode, monkeys with hippocampal removals were as impaired as those with inferotemporal ablations. In the tactual mode, however, hippocampal, but no inferotemporal, ablations were followed by a deficit. Our results, taken together with other existing evidence, emphasize the role of the hippocampus in mediating associative learning in more than one modality. These results, obtained with non-human primates, are in line with clinical findings.
已知在猴子身上切除颞下前皮质会在同时教授几对物体的成员之间进行辨别时损害学习。这种缺陷被归因于视觉记忆功能的丧失。但切除海马体也已被证明会损害记忆保持，并且这种损害超越了视觉模态。因此，在两项实验中的第一项实验中，我们使用视觉同时辨别任务，比较了颞下皮质损伤与海马体、内嗅区或穹窿损伤的行为效应。海马体或内嗅区切除的猴子表现受损，而穹窿切断的猴子则没有。然而，海马体切除包括了颞下皮质的意外损伤。因此，在第二项实验中，我们在视觉和触觉两种模态下，比较了颞下损伤与海马体（无额外颞下损伤）在同时任务中的行为效应。在视觉模式下，切除海马体的猴子与切除颞下皮质的猴子受损程度相同。然而，在触觉模式下，只有切除海马体，而不是切除颞下皮质，会导致缺陷。我们的结果，与其他现有证据一起，强调了海马体在介导多种模态的联想学习中的作用。这些用非人类灵长类动物获得的结果与临床发现一致。
