Retrosplenial cortex damage produces retrograde and anterograde context amnesia using strong fear conditioning procedures.

Retrosplenial cortex damage produces retrograde and anterograde context amnesia using strong fear conditioning procedures. Behav Brain Res. 2019 Apr 27;:111920 Authors: Fournier DI, Eddy MC, DeAngeli NE, Huszár R, Bucci DJ Abstract Contextual fear conditioning relies upon a network of cortical and subcortical structures, including the hippocampus and the retrosplenial cortex (RSC). However, the contribution of the hippocampus is parameter-dependent. For example, with "weak" training procedures, lesions of the hippocampus produce both retrograde and anterograde context amnesia. However, with "strong" training procedures (e.g., more trials and/or higher levels of footshock), lesions of the hippocampus produce retrograde context amnesia but not anterograde amnesia [1]. Likewise, prior studies have shown that with weak training, RSC lesions produce both retrograde and anterograde context amnesia [2]. The purpose of the current study was to examine the effects of RSC damage on contextual fear conditioning following strong training. In Experiment 1, lesions of the RSC resulted in both retrograde and anterograde context amnesia following strong training using the same unsignaled fear conditioning procedures described by Wiltgen et al. [1]. In Experiment 2, using a signaled fear conditioning procedure, we replicated these effects on context memory observing both retrograde and anterograde context amnesia. In contrast, there were no lesion e...
Source: Behavioural Brain Research - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Behav Brain Res Source Type: research