Corwin J V, Fussinger M, Meyer R C, King V R, Reep R L
Department of Psychology, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb 60115.
Behav Brain Res. 1994 Mar 31;61(1):79-86. doi: 10.1016/0166-4328(94)90010-8.
Previous studies have implicated the ventrolateral orbital cortex (VLO) in spatial attention and orientation. Unilateral destruction of the VLO has been found to produce severe multimodal neglect to unilateral stimulation which is qualitatively quite similar to that found following unilateral destruction of either the medial agranular or posterior parietal cortices. A series of anatomical studies have shown that the VLO is reciprocally interconnected with both the medial agranular cortex and the posterior parietal cortex, which are involved in egocentric and allocentric spatial processing respectively. However, the role of the VLO in either egocentric or allocentric spatial processing has never been directly examined. The present study directly examined the role of the VLO in spatial learning by examining the effects of bilateral VLO destruction on performance in both egocentric (adjacent-arm maze task) and allocentric (cheeseboard task) spatial tasks. Subjects in either the cheese board task or the adjacent arm maze were given presurgical maze training and then were assigned to one of three surgical groups: a bilateral VLO group, a lesion control group which received bilateral destruction of the laterally adjacent lateral orbital cortex which has a quite different pattern of connectivity than the VLO, or a sham operated control group. The results indicated that the VLO operates were significantly impaired in the cheeseboard task (allocentric task) relative to controls, but displayed no deficits in the adjacent-arm maze (egocentric task), a pattern of results similar to those found for the posterior parietal cortex. The results of the present study strongly support the contention that the VLO is a component of the cortical circuitry for spatial processing in rodents.
先前的研究表明腹外侧眶额皮质（VLO）与空间注意力和定向有关。已发现单侧损毁VLO会导致对单侧刺激的严重多模态忽视，这在性质上与单侧损毁内侧无颗粒皮质或顶叶后皮质后所发现的情况非常相似。一系列解剖学研究表明，VLO与内侧无颗粒皮质和顶叶后皮质相互连接，而这两个区域分别参与以自我为中心和以他者为中心的空间处理。然而，VLO在以自我为中心或以他者为中心的空间处理中的作用从未被直接研究过。本研究通过检查双侧VLO损毁对以自我为中心（相邻臂迷宫任务）和以他者为中心（棋盘任务）空间任务表现的影响，直接研究了VLO在空间学习中的作用。在棋盘任务或相邻臂迷宫中的受试者在手术前接受迷宫训练，然后被分配到三个手术组之一：双侧VLO组、接受双侧损毁外侧相邻外侧眶额皮质的损伤对照组（该区域的连接模式与VLO有很大不同）或假手术对照组。结果表明，相对于对照组，VLO损毁组在棋盘任务（以他者为中心的任务）中的表现明显受损，但在相邻臂迷宫（以自我为中心的任务）中没有表现出缺陷，这一结果模式与在顶叶后皮质中发现的相似。本研究结果有力地支持了VLO是啮齿动物空间处理皮质回路组成部分的观点。
