Partial hippocampal kindling affects retention but not acquisition and place but not cue tasks on the radial arm maze.

The performance of rats that were partially kindled in the hippocampus was assessed on an 8-arm radial arm maze with 4 baited arms. In rats first trained and then kindled, deficits were found on a place task in which rats reached the goal arms of the maze using salient extramaze spatial cues, but not on an intramaze cue task in which rats reached the goal arms using salient intramaze cues. Acquisition of a new place task on the maze was not different between kindled and control rats. In conclusion, partial hippocampal kindling disrupted the retention but not the acquisition of a spatial or place task; retention of a nonspatial cue task was not disrupted.