Extensive Cytotoxic Lesions Involving Both the Rhinal Cortices and Area TE Impair Recognition But Spare Spatial Alternation in the Rat

Rats with cytotoxic lesions of the perirhinal, postrhinal, and TE cortices (Rh+TE, n = 7) were compared with surgical control animals ( n = 7) on a series of spontaneous object recognition tests. The Rh+TE group was associated with a failure to select the novel object. This recognition deficit contrasted with the apparently normal ability of the same animals to learn and perform a spatial working memory test (T-maze alternation). The animals were also tested on the acquisition of an automated visual discrimination task in which the stimuli were presented on a visual display unit (VDU) equipped with a touch screen. The animals with Rh+TE lesions showed only a borderline deficit on this task. These findings are consistent with other evidence implicating the rhinal region in recognition memory. More importantly, they also provide a dissociation between spatial working memory and object recognition and, hence, show that extensive rhinal lesions are not sufficient to disconnect the hippocampus functionally.