Cerebral Cortex, Vol. 11, No. 11, 1093-1100,
November 2001
© 2001 Oxford University Press
Prefrontal Cortex Lesions Augment the Location-related Firing Properties of Area TE/Perirhinal Cortex Neurons in a Working Memory Task
Department of Human and General Physiology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy and , 1 Department of Psychology and The Neuroscience Research Centre, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
Address correspondence to D.K. Bilkey, Department of Psychology and The Neuroscience Research Centre, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand. Email: sycodkb{at}otago.ac.nz.
It has previously been proposed that prefrontal cortex may have some role in keeping temporal cortex-based representations ‘on-line’ during a working memory task. To test this hypothesis, the effects of electrolytic prefrontal cortex lesions on the firing of area TE and perirhinal cortex (PRC) neurons were examined while rats performed a delayed non-match to position task in the T-maze. The behavioural performance of control (n = 4) and lesioned (n = 4) animals were similar during this task, and many neurons displayed a statistically significant location-related variation in firing rate during the sample (44/56 neurons) and test (39/56 neurons) phases. Units from prefrontal-lesioned animals (82%) were more likely to display a significant variation in firing across the maze compared to controls (50%; P < 0.01), and to have more discrete location-related properties (50% of neurons) compared to the control (5%) group (P < 0.0005). This finding suggests that prefrontal cortex normally modulates the transmission and/or processing of spatial information in area TE/PRC during a working memory task. Modulation could be mediated through direct connections between the structures or via prefrontal control of subcortical structures. This finding has implications for our understanding of prefrontal-temporal involvement in memory and cognitive disorders.
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