Effect of selective hippocampal lesions in the rat on acquisition, performance, and extinction of bar pressing on a fixed ratio schedule

Summary

Rats with bilateral anterior and posterior hippocampal lesions (APH), anterior hippocampal lesions (AH), and controls were trained on CRF for water, and then switched to FR-20. Both hippocampal groups adapted more readily than controls to the FR-20 schedule and maintained significantly higher rates for 45 days. There were no significant differences on FR-20 between the lesion groups. Following FR-20, the rates of all groups were equalized by training on FR-30. During subsequent extinction, the APH group made significantly more responses than both the AH and control groups, while AH and control groups were indistinguishable. The acquisition results were interpreted as indicating increased emotional reactivity to delay of anticipated reward in both hippocampally lesioned groups. The extinction results suggested that APH, but not AH, lesions also result in increased perseveration.